3 out of 5

Label: Rhymesayers

Produced by: Aesop Rock

My bias was probably set at the start, when the first single from Aesop’s Spirit World Field Guide kinda put me on guard: while an awesome track, in the kind of boppy, glitchy vein of Impossible Kid, it lyrically sets us up for the album’s mind-expanding tour of an other-world. Great! …Right?

In high school, post-high school, as a young adult, and on through my 30s, there was almost always a someone who just took a trip overseas, or just read a book on Buddhism, or just did some psychedelics, or any combination of those three, and they’d be “changed” by this, spouting what – to me – felt like some only partially explored “truths” about life. Now, I have my own partially explored truths, one of which is apparently established on some bug up its ass about folks whose eyes get opened via these methods. It’s not that I feel their views are right or wrong, necessarily, I think I just take issue with the premise that these realizations weren’t / aren’t coded into everything all around us all the time. I shouldn’t begrudge others those journeys, and on some level, I don’t. But on another, ass-bugged level, I suppose I begrudge the “you should take this journey too” mentality that kinda sorta kinda gets broadcasted alongside their message.

According to wiki, Aesop Rock – Ian Bavitz – was considering getting out of the music biz, apparently, when a trip overseas set his passions alight once more, and resulted in Spirit World Field Guide, which, right at the top, talks to us about the psychic journey on which the album will take us. Listen later on for a reference to ayahuasca.

This fits the template for my trigger state. Thankfully, Aesop is generally a much more literate and interesting fella than others whom I might be lumping into this description, and so even when sifting through this subject matter, Spirit World Field Guide can be a fun listen. It’s not preachy with its themes; as usual, Rock is moreso rattling them off, tying them to imagery and thoughts, and making the album a “map” of his journey, that we can follow at our leisure. And The Gates is one of the best, and most focused tracks on the album, along with others that take to the more emotive subject matter inspired by Bavitz’s travels: Boot Soup; Jumping Coffin; Sleeper Car.

But I suppose what I’m hearing is more of a transition in Rock’s approach, down to the production. The music on this is fascinating; I also don’t think it works all that well. Beyond the well-chosen bomp of Gates, we get a lot of very organic, fuzzy stuff – lots of soft guitar and bass. And at times, it almost feels like AR was more interested in making a non-hip hop album in terms of the music, but then habitually tied things back to a beat, which – to my ears – makes the mix ultimately underwhelming; a sentiment underlined when listening to the instrumentals. And then lyrically, besides some of the highlights mentioned, I hear that post-retirement decision in the delivery and subject matter: if everything leading up to this point was formative, getting to some ultimate expression, this is now after-the-fact, and there’s a kind of malaise to the tales being told, where even the casual what-happened-in-my-day tracks (a common AR staple) feel more casual than ever, stuck between the moments of others. Like after having his eyes opened, Rock is still ready to retire, but sure, he’ll drop some bars on his experiences in the meantime.

All that said, Bavitz is such a skilled musician that even efforts I might consider lesser-baked are still impressive; the dude’s got the tough role of having his material compared to the rest of a jaw-dropping career or albums. Against that, SWFG doesn’t land for me, but it also is far from failing, even when having to fight the uphill battle against my prejudices.