Aesop Rock Skelethon (2012)
Landers Hoang
Like Waits, Rock's lyrical gifts and cult-leader singularity often overshadows his musical prowess. Look at this review: 1,300 words on symbols and a paragraph to production. But Skelethon reveals how far Rock's come since the Bazooka Tooth-era, when his beats largely lacked swing and he hadn't yet fully synthesized El-P's industrial influence. His productions now switch between samples and live instrumentation, psychedelic guitars and fright night keyboards, 1980s 808s and beastly drum thrashes. Garage rock riffs married to phosphorescent synths exhumed from the same UFO graveyard as El-P and Black Moth Super Rainbow.
Aesop Rock's 6th studio album from 2014. Skelethon not only sees the rapper back waxing poetically on his own but also marks his first wholly self-produced effort. While the sounds are familiar, we see Aesop venturing in some exciting new directions with guest appearances from indie rock archetype, Kimya Dawson, as well as Allyson Baker of Dirty Ghosts, Hanni El Khatib, Nicky Fleming-Yaryan, Rob Sonic, DJ Big Wiz and the Grimace Federation. Aesop's new album follows in the wake of several deep personal losses and highlights subject matter that deals with the sometimes-futile ways people try to cope with serious issues. The cover art comes from Barcelona-based painter Aryz. Skelethon is set to be both a showpiece for his illustrious career and a serious payoff for his droves of ever-patient loyal fans.
Skelethon is the first album from Aesop Rock to be entirely self-produced, but the template hasn't fluctuated much from the mercurial, experimental approach he adopted on his groundbreaking None Shall Pass. There are flashes of less hip-hop oriented musical adventures on Crows 1, featuring a nursery-rhyme refrain from Kimya Dawson of twee-folkers Moldy Peaches. Scratch deeper, and many of Aesop's productions are anchored in an indie-rock sensibility, from the picked, echoing guitar melody of opener Leisureforce, to the beatless, vibrato chords behind his emotional verse on Ruby '81.
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