When you first hear
Aesop Rock rhyme, your immediate reaction should really be ‘What is this guy actually rapping about?’. His lyrics are different, to say the least, and it’s sometimes difficult to actually hear and understand what he’s saying, and what point he’s trying to make. His new EP
Fast Cars, Danger, Fire, And Knives contains an 80-page book which goes a long way to helping answer that burning question. The first 20,000 copies of his new release on
Def Jux contain the quaint little book entitled
The Living Human Curiosity Sideshow which lays out the lyrics of his entire backlog of albums, from
Float to
Labor Days to his 2002 EP
Daylight to his somewhat ingenious album of 2003
Bazooka Tooth. This book finally allows us to see, for the first time, Aesop Rock’s lyrical ability actually published, and all it takes is one random scan through the book to see how groundbreakingly original, and downright weird, his lyrics can be: "
Burn train buffers/My fancy/Up jumps the boogie delivering eye jimmies/Float through the muck with a clutch on trident/never give a fuck how far pi went/You are dealing with a reborn icicle age poltergeist/Uprock/ sidewalk cipher stuck at the bus stop." (taken from
No Jumper Cables,
Bazooka Tooth, 2003).
As for the EP itself, when I first gave it a spin, I was worried that it wouldn’t live up to my expectations, and it wouldn’t be as good as his previous releases. I was satisfyingly wrong. His ability and ideas seem to progress with each release, and this CD helps to cement his status as King of the NYC Underground. The beats are absolutely banging, and throughout the 7 tracks, I found my head constantly nodding and my foot constantly tapping. His lyrics are timed perfectly, not one line sounds out of place with respect to the beat and the production (by himself and his Def Jux alliance such as
El-P and
Rob Sonic). It’s clearly an EP which has not been rushed, and every effort has been made to make everything just… fit.
I could sit here all day and analyse the individual tracks, but I certainly couldn’t do any of them justice. Each is an individual masterpiece in itself, and not one beat is reproduced, nor one lyric copied or bitten. I could go out on a limb and say that the best track is
Rickety Rackety featuring CamuTao (One half of
SA Smash) and Definitive Jux godfather El-Producto. It’s got a fast beat, and battle rap style rhyme spitting, with each MC taking it in turn to lay it down and show their individual styles in a truly awesome manner.
On the flip side of this, I’d be lying if I said that this release is accessible to everyone. Infact, I’d go as far to say that if you aren’t a fan of innovative, new and original underground hip hop, then you may hate this outright. Aesop’s voice is one of the most distinctive of all time, and with such distinction comes the possibility of grating on some ears. Certain listeners may find this (and his other albums) somewhat difficult, and this type of hip hop may be regarded as for a niche audience only, but I’d certainly recommended this if you want to get into underground hip hop, and you want to be part of something brand new, something totally original. If you do listen to this album, and you do like it, then it’s advisable to check out Aesop’s other releases, then move on to Definitive Jux’s other artists and albums. I promise that you won’t look back once.
EP: Aesop Rock - Fast Cars, Danger, Fire, And Knives 
Re: EP Review: Aesop Rock - 'Fast Cars, Danger, Fire, And Knives' 
