Aesop Rock — Spirit World Field Guide

A few years ago, this article started doing the rounds of the internet, naming Aesop Rock as far-and-away the rapper with the largest vocabulary in the industry. This should give you a clue about what an Aesop track sounds like: he's a verbose, big-word user who raps over guitar and analog drum instrumental traxx. His wordy hip-hop tome, the Impossible Kid was among the best albums of 2016. It has since become among my go-to pump-up records.

I’d say Aesop Rock’s latest offering, Spirit World Field Guide, is more of exactly what you'd expect from him. Sometimes an artist perfects a sound and spends a few records just delivering that fine-tuned experience without straying too far from a time-tested formula. Rock-inspired backing tracks with analog drum-sounds and copious use of the electric guitar serve as a backdrop for imagery-laden multi-syllable rhymes on a single theme: in the case of this album, a concept surrounding a field guide to an imagined spirit world. 

At over an hour long, it follows in the trend of the three new albums I’ve been listening to this week: this one, Taylor Swift’s evermore, and the Avalanches’ We Will Always Love You. In the case of this album, I’ll take Aesop Rock’s advice and say you don’t necessarily need to listen to the whole album in a single sitting. That isn’t how it’s been composed. In his words:

"I don't necessarily view it as something you need to listen to front to back in one sitting. In an actual field guide, you'd kinda flip around until you find the section that applies to your current situation. That's how this feels to me."

I agree. Most of all, as one of the very few hip-hop artists I can still listen to, I reserve special praise to Aesop Rock and this album. Go check it out.