NEW MUSIC | AESOP ROCK & BLOCKHEAD DROP NEW VIDEO ‘JAZZ HANDS’ AHEAD OF COLLABORATIVE ALBUM ‘GARBOLOGY’

Aesop Rock and long­time music­al ally Block­head have announced the upcom­ing release of the col­lab­or­at­ive album Gar­bology via Rhymesay­ers Enter­tain­ment on Novem­ber 12. Though the pair’s col­lab­or­at­ive rela­tion­ship stretches all the way back to when they were first start­ing out in the late 90’s, includ­ing Block­head pro­du­cing two of the most pop­u­lar songs of Aesop’s back cata­log (“Day­light” and “None Shall Pass”) as well as sev­er­al fea­tures across each other’s releases, Gar­bology marks their first full length release togeth­er. The pair have shared an early taste with album track “Jazz Hands,” a stun­ning stream of con­scious­ness music­al and lyr­ic­al sprint bolstered by an accom­pa­ny­ing music video by Rob Shaw – watch here.

Gar­bology came togeth­er in the midst of Aesop pro­cessing the loss of a close friend in Janu­ary of 2020, which res­ul­ted in a cre­at­ive lull. “The world got really weird dur­ing those months,” recalls Aesop. “I knew at some point I had to get back to mak­ing some­thing. Make a beat. Draw a pic­ture. Write. Just go. But the idea of mak­ing a beat felt like math home­work, and draw­ing is just so hard. Writ­ing is hard too, but at some point I had to pick one.” Hav­ing ulti­mately decided on writ­ing as the path for­ward, Aesop hit up Block­head for beats. Ini­tially, there wasn’t any par­tic­u­lar plan bey­ond cre­at­ing some songs, but as the songs kept pil­ing up it wasn’t long before an album was born.

Gar­bology music­ally encap­su­lates our cur­rent moment; a snap­shot of Aes and Block enter­tain­ing them­selves in an era where social inter­ac­tions are lim­ited, all while “anchored on a goulash of cab­in fever, fear, anger and bore­dom”, as Aesop describes it. As for the title, he explains that “Gar­bology is defined as the study of the mater­i­al dis­carded by a soci­ety to learn what it reveals about social or cul­tur­al pat­terns. I find a lot of par­al­lels between that and the idea of pick­ing up the pieces after a loss or peri­od of intense unrest, and see­ing what’s really there. It’s inform­a­tion that speaks to who I am, who we are, and how we move for­ward. Fur­ther­more — the idea of dig­ging through old, often neg­lected music from anoth­er time with an ear tuned for tak­ing in that data in a dif­fer­ent way than your aver­age listen­er would is exactly what Block does. Go through the inform­a­tion and see what you find.”

In the spir­it of the album’s theme, the vinyl has been pressed as an “eco-mix”, a 100% recycled com­pound com­prised of trimmed flash and left overs from oth­er col­or vinyl press­ings which can­not oth­er­wise be reused, res­ult­ing in every copy of the LP hav­ing its own unique appear­ance while sig­ni­fic­antly redu­cing the envir­on­ment­al impact of the press­ing pro­cess.

Jazz Hands is out now– https://rse.lnk.to/Gar­bology
Gar­bology is out on Fri­day 12th Novem­ber
 
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Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

About Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal
Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless. Currently working in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media knowledge to I am Hip Hop and other projects by No Bounds.