Aesop Rock's debut Def Jux album Labor Days released back in 2001 is dope with a capital D.…I bumped a couple of joints earlier on this evening for the first time in a long time and found myself with an uncanny urge to write a rant fuelled homage to it’s dopeness. The result is what follows (bit of a long read, but worth it if you haven’t heard the album before)
On Labor Days, Aesop Rock says more astoundingly intelligent things per minute than the entire combined rosters of most other labels. His implementation of complex poetic devices / outstanding rhyme schemes will be wasted on many, but modest Aesop doesn’t rhyme for props even if he is fully deserving of drooling accolades such as mine.
Blockhead, who handles the majority of production here, does a fine job in complimenting Aesop’s double-timed verses and jimhickey wordplay. There is nothing like the sweep and pulse of intertwining melodies to lend momentum to deep bass line fuelled jams....Layered with scraping percussion, Eastern Mediterranean guitar plucks, wiry synthesizers, yawping wood flutes and even handbells, the tone of Labor Days somehow manages to be intimate and epic at the same time.
One would assume that much of the low-key, bass-oriented production might conflict with Aesop’s rapid-fire delivery. Surprisingly, the effect of this juxtapose is intensely pleasurable giving the album a warm and almost amniotic sense of immediacy. Aesop embraces every beat with detail-driven narratives, peppering parallel metaphors and interjections throughout whilst retaining a sense of originality in his subject matter.
Labor Days is a very good album….and in an age where the hip hop press is notoriously fickle, slapping dumb, classic! hyperbole on nearly every underground artist that stumbles along with a half decent mixtape whilst simultaneously riding the dicks of dead rappers, it’s albums like this that should be truly remembered in years to come.
Discuss.
On Labor Days, Aesop Rock says more astoundingly intelligent things per minute than the entire combined rosters of most other labels. His implementation of complex poetic devices / outstanding rhyme schemes will be wasted on many, but modest Aesop doesn’t rhyme for props even if he is fully deserving of drooling accolades such as mine.
Blockhead, who handles the majority of production here, does a fine job in complimenting Aesop’s double-timed verses and jimhickey wordplay. There is nothing like the sweep and pulse of intertwining melodies to lend momentum to deep bass line fuelled jams....Layered with scraping percussion, Eastern Mediterranean guitar plucks, wiry synthesizers, yawping wood flutes and even handbells, the tone of Labor Days somehow manages to be intimate and epic at the same time.
One would assume that much of the low-key, bass-oriented production might conflict with Aesop’s rapid-fire delivery. Surprisingly, the effect of this juxtapose is intensely pleasurable giving the album a warm and almost amniotic sense of immediacy. Aesop embraces every beat with detail-driven narratives, peppering parallel metaphors and interjections throughout whilst retaining a sense of originality in his subject matter.
Labor Days is a very good album….and in an age where the hip hop press is notoriously fickle, slapping dumb, classic! hyperbole on nearly every underground artist that stumbles along with a half decent mixtape whilst simultaneously riding the dicks of dead rappers, it’s albums like this that should be truly remembered in years to come.
Discuss.
