El Aes, Def Swim

Apparently keeping up with the Green Hornet is impossible but I'll try to make my posts semi-regular around here to spice things up a bit.


The Def Jux family has some new shit for yah ears. First off Aesop Rock has been working on his album None Shall Pass and reportedly getting close to polishing that off. In the meantime there are a couple clips of that up on his myspace page with some dope production from Blockhead on a few and 45 minute “All Day” mix he just produced and released in collaboration with Nike. When I first heard about it I thought this has got "sell-out" written all over it but after giving it a listen and reading Aesop's description of the project I was pleasantly surprised with the concept. The idea was to make a continuous track given a set of rules encompassing tempo, changes in the beat, etc so someone can use it as a mix for when they go running. My lazy ass isn't goin’ for a jog anytime soon but the beats are dope and his rhyming blends things together and it’s a good listen either way. I get why Aesop would jump on this but Nike? I still haven’t figured that one out.



Onto the founder of the label himself - Mr. El Producto. His new album I'll Sleep When You're Dead is due out March 20th and I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advance copy. Compared to Fantastic Damage it’s a new ballgame but still reminiscent to the last release. Heavily layered samples rule throughout and El still holds down the mic with his familiar but matured flow. Buncha features on the album including Mars Volta, Cat Power, Trent Reznor and a few familiar Jukies. It’s a dense piece of work that’s been taking me a few plays to get my head around but for the production work alone I’d recommend it.

Finally Def Swim was released a couple weeks back, a free download from Definitive Jux and Adult Swim. It’s got 10 tracks including features from both upcoming albums mentioned above along with new stuff from Cage and a few others. I’m not quite sure of the aim of Adult Swim lately with all of these hip hop partnerings but I’m sure it works well for the label/artist. I honestly haven’t given it the best listen yet so I can’t really comment on how good it is overall but you can’t go wrong with free.

Here’s a couple links and clips for yah to check out the above mentioned –

El-P - The Overly Dramatic Truth (live at the Plug Awards)


Aesop Rock - All Day Mix Snippet

El-P Myspace Songs


Def Swim