By Daniel Paiz

Aesop Rock & Blockhead summit layers in their collaborative project “Trouble Mountain”. 30 years of knowing one another had to play at least a small part in creating this prodigious album. This is Aesop Rock’s thirteenth album, and his pen game is as strong as any other previous project.

A variety of visuals permeate throughout the album, along with ideas and descriptions that conjure up a lot to ponder.

Summit-Tier Tracks

There are a lot of good tracks on this album, with a pleasing array of instrumentals. Blockhead does a good job designing tracks for Rock to rap over. There are a few that just draw this listener’s ear a bit more than the others. This first one is the album-defining song for this listener. The following line sums it up well:

You bore a tunnel through the trouble, that’s informative stuff, it’s moving forward instead assuming moving forward is up

-Aesop Rock

This song is the one that slices the album into two parts for me: pre-mountain and post-mountain. “Trouble Trouble” is Aes on the proverbial mountain, explaining that while actual mountains do cause difficulties, life itself is a summit that has more than one direction. In fact, moving forward doesn’t mean going up, despite the actual hiking of a mountain; rather, it’s about growing and moving on regardless of the actual physical direction.

Aes drops these double entendres of sorts where it has dual meanings that also do not contradict one another. Once I realized what was going on with this track, it shed light on prior tracks. All the tracks after this song also felt different compared to earlier songs on the album. This track also elicits some grander epiphanies. Mountains and more often defeat humans in terms of our hubris and unpreparedness. We cannot summit our expectations, greed, and more, but move forward instead.

Rewind prior to this album-defining song on the album, the opening track “Swedish Death Cleaning” has a portion that grabbed my attention from the very first listen:

The smarter I get, the dumber I give,

I’ve been studying so much I’m bout to jump off a bridge,

this under the dungeon where nothing lovable lives

-Aesop Rock

Here we see the axiom of the curse of knowledge, as knowing so much can lead to distress and seeking an outlet of some kind; the ending portion about the dungeon quickly quells the worry about the bridge statement in a way that isn’t so jarring. Along with the overall idea related to the song title (Swedish death cleaning is known as discarding possessions prior to one’s death), there’s a grander notion of discarding in prep of going to the mountain.

As this song begins the album, trouble mountain can still be viewed as a destination, a physical location. After the epiphany of “Trouble Trouble”, this song can give the idea of shedding what’s not needed or weighing one down to move forward. This interconnection of two songs adds more layers for this listener, and again draws in the ear to uncover more.

Every emcee has a track where they showcase the range of their talents. “Ants” is that track, even though initially it does not seem like it:

Step through a cement wall with bells on, get crestfallen by the lead belly hell spawn, swell,

every time I hit the field, the people whisperin’ the prophecy has been fulfilled

-Aesop Rock

There’s the initial braggadocio comparison of being someone that has been rumored to fulfill some awaited role. The wall-bustin’, hell spawn stoppin’ main character doing that. Together with the title of the song, there’s discussion on perspective. The song itself has lines about skills. But also, folks have a role to play like ants, and many play a role to set up life for others. The layers of it make “Ants” both a showcase and a fascinating song to review.

One track that might not catch people’s attention but is similar to the slept-on track selection below is the song called “Oatmeal“. This one seems to pull from the past but has modern day lessons as well.

Once the brain’s tricked, the body is just a rideshare, come to, nothin’ but tumblin in a side mirror

-Aesop Rock

This track seems to explore both the mundane and the seeking of a refresh, a start over from said mundaneness. The line above hints at what happens when something stark happens, in what appears to be a crash of some kind. How one responds after something drastic happens can itself be a new start, or it can be trying to re-piece what happened to cause the accident or big event. Familiarity both breeds desire for radical change, but then also a return to routine.

Slept-On Track

The closing song of this album, “Buffering“, had me clicking repeat multiple times. There’s a lot going on, and there are lines that highlight both today and the yesteryear that Aes pulls from for this album. The following rhymes were on repeat:

money is a ministry, and suffering and industry,

what were you expecting but a company that misery when all is finished buffering,

it isn’t just some bubbling infinity, it bubbles ‘cause it finna be erupting

-Aesop Rock

These lines paint a picture of today so well. How things are loading (thus the song title) have systems for continued earning; there is both detrimental impact on who it takes from, and from those helping to enable. “Buffering” reminds listeners the consequences are not thought of until it is too late, and how things can lead to “expiration” in several capacities. The song references bright lights out of one’s chest, also hinting at life ceasing either internally with ego and one’s mind, or just death in general. Trouble Mountain is called that for this reason of digging into so many existential themes.

Biggest Takeaways

It feels like there are two parts to this album. The songs leading up to “Trouble Trouble” sound like different vantage points related to Trouble Mountain and a journey of getting there and whatnot. After “Trouble Trouble” there’s a curtain reveal for the meaning of “Trouble Mountain”. The songs feel like different life lessons and vantage points instead; “Trouble Mountain” is both a mountain and a metaphor.

Life gives different events and interactions. There is the before and after vantage point, as well as Aes sharing what he’s encountered with trouble mountain. The after stuff is not always tied to the mountain, but there can be some troubles associated with these events.

There’s a good deal of reflection here. Life can be like a hike with peaks and valleys. Certain events also leave marks and memories, showing some wear and tear on our minds and outlooks.

Life is a hike ahead, and one must accept that moving forward and weathering the trouble is the best option.

I might never truly get a resolution arc

-Aesop Rock on “Ewok”