Aesop Rock always had sort of an otherwordly quality to his music. His beats are hardly what I would call "grounded" and his extremely allegorical lyricism rides such a wild dragon of subconscious connections that it sometimes feels like he's stick acupuncture needles directly into your brain. Given the implosion of introspection that usually forms the polished gem of creative concentrate at the core of each and every song he chisels off the infinitely rejuvenating marbled surface of his mind, it's not hard to believe that he would take the downtime offered by the sudden halt of business as grueling usual in order to write a new album. That album is Spirit World Field Guide and it's probably the most informed and instructive work of his entire career.
Living through a global pandemic, that literally grinds life to a halt, while government and bosses do everything in their power to snap you like a toothpick in order to squeeze that last drop of sap out before discarding you as another inevitable casualty of the new normal, can feel like living in a nightmare, like you've faceplanted into an alternative universe, like you're falling down a chasmal pit that has no sides, no bottom, and increasingly no light or air. It would seem at times that we're all living that fateful fabled fumble of Lewis Carroll's Alice as she plunged into Wonderland, except, instead of floating into a fantasyland, you're hurdled toward the bedrock of a brimstone-floored reality. Or maybe are more like an ostrich egg, pitched into the knotted-joints of a chain-link fence. Parts of you might make it through to the other side, but there is no way you're getting there in one piece. The surrealness and blinding speed with which we are passing through this time of transition is nothing if not peculiar, in the same sense that finding the steering wheel of your care protruding through your chest following an auto-accident is peculiar. The unreality sensations of this freshly minted materiality is captured with fidelity by the inward glancing horror and long, dry exhale of Aesop Rock's Spirit World Field Guide.
The album begins with a prelude where Aesop introduces you to the album, as a field guide to your passage into the world of spirits, sacred artifacts, and demiurgic apparati. This introduction promises to provide direction and countenance in the listener's journey through this realm of ethereal danger and intrigue. It's all miss direction though. The world Aesop is bringing into focus on Spirit World is our own. This is extremely apparent on the song "Boot Soup" where Aesop amusingly reckons with his own gradual decrepitude while recounting his struggles with increasingly debilitating back pain, but the slice-of-life, soul-folk pretzel-twist and compressed-boom-bap of "Coveralls" is the real give away that we haven't left our own dimension. The song is as straightforward of a depiction of a walk around the block replete with "neighborly" interactions as you are likely to hear Aesop describe, and it includes the line "Every time I look up from the paper / I see animals exhibiting irregular behavior... / Birds are flying belly-side-up, fish are walking out the water / Even though it seems legit / I'm right here til the season dip / I ain't seen shit." Translation: Bad omens surround you, but until you can figure out what these hexes portend, stay loose and keep your head down. Practical advice is not something that people go to hip hop for, but as far as actionable guidance is concerned, this might be as good as you can hope from the artform.
You might say that Aesop sounds paranoid or deluded on Spirit World, and for sure, tracks like "Dog At the Door" are explicitly about the mind games that commence when you hear a bump in the night, but I counter that paranoia is only a problem if it never saves your skin. Like the fable of the fox and the boar, where a fox delights in mocking the boar for sharpening his tusks against a stone when there is no danger present, only to be rebuffed by the boar, "But when danger does come, I will be ready." The moral: if you give no forethought to the dangers that lie ahead, you'll have no hope of rising to the challenge that they will present. Such is the substantive pitch of Spirit World. We exist on a perilous plane of existence, a place that is flooded with dark energy and malevolent intent. In order to see your way through the maze of traps and snares and the thicket of thieves that lie ahead, you will need a sharp blade and your wits about you. Spirit World is your whetstone for this journey. Solve its riddle sand you just might survive the incoming ambush. Fail to ascertain its messages, and someone will soon be wearing your scalp as an ascot.
Get a copy of Spirit World Field Guide from Rhymesayers Entertainment.
