welcome back folks! this week, for the Aesop Rock discography journey, we’ll be listening to 2016’s The Impossible Kid!
man i really enjoyed The Impossible Kid – Aesop Rock brings a much darker, moodier sound to this record, and it matches a much more sober reflection on his life. Aesop is no stranger to getting personal in his music, for sure, but a large part of this record is circling old ghosts – Rings, which was the bigger single off the record, is pretty openly about Aesop’s time as a visual artist and the ways it stays inside him like rings in a tree, Dorks addresses his position in the music industry and the movers around him, and Lotta Years is a pretty funny track about interacting with The Youth. Blood Sandwich talks about his brothers and Camu Tao, a rapper who passed from lung cancer in 2008 who Aesop was close to, is name dropped several times on the record most touchingly in Get Out of the Car. he even raps about his time in therapy on Shrunk and the cat he adopted on his therapists recommendation on the incredibly funny Kirby. Aesop spent some time out of the city living in a barn leading up to this record, and i can absolutely see the perspective and reflection that that kind of time away would afford you represented all across the record.
i think this is probably the tightest sonic package he’s delivered though. most of the beats here really land, and even the tracks i dont adore have pretty fun samples, hooks, or other flourishes that make them really fun to listen to. Rabies is a track i tend to find alright as a whole package, but i really like a lot of what theyre doing here in the mix. and it REALLY works on some of my favorite tracks here – LOVE the guitar and hooks on Supercell, for example. there’s a fun sampled line right at the end of the first “chorus” before he jumps into the second verse too, haha.
so yeah! this is probably my favorite record of Aes’s so far – i think Aesop wears the “experienced vet” well here, almost two decades into his musical career, and im very interested to see what he does in the decade between this record and now.
faves – Rings, Supercell, Blood Sandwich, Get Out of the Car, Kirby
dislikes –
The Impossible Kid – 8/10
next week, we’ll be listening to Malibu Ken, another collab record!
first: Music For Earthworms | previous: Bestiary | next: Malibu Ken