FOLK THIS!

Aesop Rock and Moldy Peach Kimya Dawson’s Brainchild
By Kyle Eustice

“I’m not famous,” declares Ian Bavitz,“ and I still hide.“ That’s exactly the type of thing you’d expect to hear from Bavitz. The San Francisco-based emcee, more commonly known as Aesop Rock, is an often enigmatic and mostly elusive hip-hop artist. His lyrics are representative of the abstract approach he takes to songwriting. Much like visual art, they are complex, intricate and completely subjective. It’s a process that can be arduous and tedious for the artist, but it has apparently served him well over the years.
“I usually write notes all day, every day or when I think of something I just write it down. Sometimes I make a voice memo. I usually need a beat to actually construct the rhyme then I decide what I will write about and see if I have any thoughts or phrases I wanted to use that would fit what I’m working on,“ he explains. Then I’ll go through my notes. It can be slow and sometimes leads to writing more than one song at a time, but it's the way I do it. After I get the bulk of the writing done, I’ll demo it up and then fill out the beat around the lyrics. In the end I’ll do a more energized 'real' vocal take so I’m not reading it off paper.”
Bavitz was born in Long Island, New York and heavily influenced by old school hip-hop artists such as Public Enemy, Run DMC and Boogie Down Productions. After graduating from Boston University in 1998 with a degree in fine arts, he quickly broke into the underground scene with 1999’s Appleseed EP. He then signed with Mush Records that same year until eventually settling with the Manhattan-based label, Definitive Jux (Def Jux) in 2001. His debut, Labor Days, produced the single “Daylight” which proved to be his breakthrough track, being re-released as 7-track EP soon after. His career exploded from there. While never gaining commercial success, his most recent solo album, 2007’s None Shall Pass, cemented his reputation as a cryptic indie-rapper with lyrics that were harder to decipher than on previous efforts. Even with the 88-page lyric booklet that accompanied the 2005 Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives EP or the transcription of the track “Citronella,” it didn’t make understanding him any easier. After repeated listens, however, the words begin to sink in, at least a little bit. He tends to make things more opaque and leave the heavy-lifting up to listener as they are encouraged to decode, or not decode. It’s up to the them how much effort they want to put into “getting” Aesop Rock.
“I guess on my end, I just like it to be a bit of a whirlwind of music that needs dissecting over time. When people tell me they keep noticing new things after many listens, that really feels good,” he says. “I put a lot into this so I like when it feels like people are taking an equal amount from it.”
It will be interesting to see what people take from his latest project. Bavitz teamed up with a very unlikely artist, anti-folk singer Kimya Dawson of The Moldy Peaches. As odd as that might sound, it actually fits well with his unusual, experimental style. His unpredictability is part of what makes him so enticing and this pairing with Dawson isn’t as strange as one may think.
“We emailed a bit and she asked me to do a little work on her new solo record. I was/am a huge fan of hers for years so I was happy to help in any way I could. We worked well together so I did some rapping, some sample stuff and percussion on about 6 songs. Then we just decided to keep it going and write some songs together as a group,“ Bavitz says. “I think the collaboration has been and continues to be some fresh air for both of us. It’s super fun and maybe a different sound than most of my solo work. I write differently for it. It’s hard to explain until you hear it.”
“I’ve read that a few people think it's weird. I guess that’s cuz she’s a folk singer and I’m a rapper. The bottom line is we both love to write a lot of lyrics,” he continues. “I think if you listen to a Kimya Dawson album and one of my albums, there are a ton of similarities, the most apparent being neither of us shut up.”
That makes perfect sense. Bavitz’s colorful tongue twisters and Dawson’s fondness for endless details go hand in hand. Only a few tracks are available on Daytrotter.com including “Delicate Cycle,” “Earthquake” and “Looking Out The Windshield.” Each well-crafted song is intensely personal, hauntingly intimate and refreshingly mellow, with just an acoustic guitar being strummed in the background. By the time each verse ends, Dawson feels more and more like a friend, revealing so much about herself that it’s almost uncomfortable. Bavitz is most likely doing the same thing, just in a different way.
“It really depends on the song. There are always life experiences implanted in everything. Some songs are true stories, sometimes are more out there, some are easy to follow, others not so much,“ he says. “It really depends on my mood and on what the music is inspiring from me. I just try to keep pushing, you know? I want to keep it going. I’m sure certain elements evolve over the years as I hone my craft a bit. I just keep writing and hoping for some original ideas and styles to pop into my brain. That’s all I can really do.”
This yet-to-be named collaboration is as original as it gets. What began as a mutual respect for each other’s music evolved into a marriage of their two very unique styles. With Bavitz, he appears to be half-asleep, but then again, he seems to have the capability to deliver a thousand brilliant thoughts at any given moment while Dawson is like the Mt. Vesuvius of information. Their shared ability to vacillate from winky irony to blunt anger in two sentences or less, while executed differently, is eerily similar. Perhaps living in the hipster city of San Francisco has finally gotten to him. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the people in charge of Def Jux probably didn’t see this one coming.
“Geography probably influenced my headspace and therefore my style, but not consciously. If anything, it just sequestered me from what I knew my whole life in New York which can be a refreshing way to jolt your brain into thinking in new ways,“ he explains. “Many people aren’t ready for a jolt like that, upping and moving to a brand new place, but I think it can be really inspiring to accept the challenge even when you’re not sure if it's gonna work. Just be in a new place and let go of a little of the stubborn pride for your home town for the sake of learning about what goes on around you without assuming you know. It’s powerful stuff.”
Somewhere along his coast-to-coast adventures, Bavitz was introduced to another integral player in the underground hip-hop scene, Michael “Eyedea” Larson. His untimely death in October of last year ignited an uproar of support from the whole music community. Shortly after meeting Bavitz, Dawson was asked to perform at Larsen’s memorial concert in his hometown of Minneapolis. Bavitz and Larsen had worked on plenty of projects together so it was no surprise that he wanted to be there to show his respect for the freestyle legend along with other members of the Rhymesayers Entertainment family.
“He was a creative person, you know? He oozed that vibe. He always wanted to talk music, rap and lyrics. He would study that shit. You got the feeling when he listened to songs, he wasn’t casual about it. He was figuring out what the artist did and was really thinking about it. It was always clear to me that music affected Mikey's life in a way that doesn’t happen to many people,” Bavitz recalls. “I think I feel the same about music so it was always great and intense to hear what he had to say when we'd see each other. I just knew him as a dude who loved the craft of rhyming. He would mention very specific things to me about certain verses like 'oh in this when you did this part I noticed this’ and I’d be like ‘yea, you’re right.’ Nobody ever noticed stuff like that. It seemed music for him was equal parts heart and technique. I always loved that about him.”
If it’s true that birds of a feather flock together then Dawson, Bavitz and Larsen must be from the same nest. Their inventiveness, knack for descriptive details and unrelenting passion for their crafts shine through with everything they do. Dawson and Bavitz’s mutual endeavor, while unexpected, just may be their most brilliant move yet.