Abstract rap legend Aesop Rock and veteran producer Blockhead have been making music together for decades. Next month, they'll release Trouble Mountain, only their second fully collaborative LP. It's a concept record about the ads for Poconos vacation resorts that Aesop and Blockhead used to see on New York TV as kids. It's got appearances from people like Open Mike Eagle, Cavalier, and onetime Ludacris associate 4-IZE, and I love the cover art. We already posted lead single "Trouble Trouble," and now Aesop and Blockhead share the new track "Coyote Summer."
Blockhead's "Coyote Summer" beat is some real idyllic boom-bap, and it's got a hook where Aesop trades lines with another longtime collaborator, the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Hanni El Khatib. On the verses, Aes gets on his ten-ton hammer slammer, coming up with dizzy imagery like nobody else: "Shark fins poking through the blacktop/ Attack dogs lope across the catwalk like ghosts in a crash log/ All you hear is crab claws cracking on a black box." I also really like the part where he reels off his deli order. In the Evan Gütt-directed video, we see Aesop in vacation mode. Check it out below.
Trouble Mountain is out 11/13 on Rhymesayers.