Aesop Rock - Integrated Tech Solutions (November 10, 2023)

[silentvision]

 

For the better part of three decades, Aesop Rock has used the syntax of the moment to pinpoint the fault lines in that moment’s supposedly solid foundation. With his tenth album,Integrated Tech Solutions, Aes wields insidious corporatespeak as a tool to pry that parasitic worldview away from the parts of life that truly matter. 

A concept album about an organization offering “lifestyle- and industry-specific applications designed to curate a desired multi-experience,”Integrated Tech Solutions picks apart the charlatan language that hears app inventors put themselves on continuums starting with cavemen and continuing through da Vinci. On “Mindful Solutionism,” the wheel evolves seamlessly into modern agriculture—and then into atomic bombs, Agent Orange, cigarettes, and surveillance cameras. In a rare moment of transparency, the engineers Aes give voice to sum up this spiral in just a few words: “We cannot be trusted with the stuff that we come up with.” 

Appropriately, the album sounds like the past and future at once. Largely self-produced,Integrated Tech Solutions catches Aes at his leanest and most innovative, leveraging “Solutionism”’s careening bounce against the wistful “By the River” or the slow creep of “Salt and Pepper Squid.” The effect is a record that sounds itself like an organism growing, mutating, hurtling toward profitability—and then destruction. As fans have come to expect, Aes is cuttingly funny and slyly profound at once, whether recounting a childhood restaurant run-in with Mr. T (“100 Feet Tall”) or quipping, on “Pigeonometry,” that “white dove is a pigeon—you motherfuckers is bigots.” At the same time,Integrated Tech Solutions is working on another parallel project: tracing the sprawl of modernity and cutting directly to its core. “I’ve been doing laps of the lost worlds,” he raps on “All City Nerve Map,” sounding at once wearied and reinvigorated. “I can draw a map to the raw nerve.”

01. The ITS Way 
02. Mindful Solutionism
03. Infinity Fill Goose Down
04. Living Curfew (feat. billy woods)
05. Pigeonometry
06. Kyanite Toothpick (feat. Hanni El Khatib)
07. 100 Feet Tall
08. Salt and Pepper Squid
09. Time Moves Differently Here
10. Aggressive Steven
11. Bermuda (feat. Lealani Teano) 
12. By The River
13. All City Nerve Map
14. Forward Compatibility Engine (feat. Rob Sonic)
15. On Failure 
16. Solid Gold
17. Vititus 
18. Black Snow (feat. Nikki Jean)

https://rhymesayers.com/collections/aesop-rock-integrated-tech-solutions

[beerwolf]

Cool. Always check his store, Mr Aesop Rock always has very cool merchandise. Some of the best in the business. 

[DavieAddison]

This vinyl looks amazing https://aesoprock.com/collections/integrated-tech-solutions/products/integrated-tech-solutions-limited

[xyrofen]

On 9/14/2023 at 6:59 PM, DavieAddison said:

This vinyl looks amazing https://aesoprock.com/collections/integrated-tech-solutions/products/integrated-tech-solutions-limited

That's got some incredible gimmicks going on, no wonder it sold out.

[beerwolf]

TUNE ^^^

now that is a powerful cat!!

Edited September 30, 2023 by beerwolf

[beerwolf]

Really like the Billy Woods collab on this. 

[ignatius]

some dope tunes on this.. the track Black Snow has sick last verse and drop just before it.. funky af. 

 

[nragzxer]

On 3/13/2024 at 12:22 PM, beerwolf said:

Really like the Billy Woods collab on this. 

billy woods is an absolute force of nature. his penmanship and delivery are consistently on point. he's had an incredible run over the past 12 years, whether through his solo work, features, or his collaborative project Armand Hammer with ELUCID.