After over 20 years of collaboration, which also birthed Aesop’s two most popular songs to date (“Daylight” and “None Shall Pass”), Garbology is the first Aesop Rock album fully produced by Blockhead.

Garbology came together over the course of the pandemic, as well as in the midst of Aesop processing the loss of a close friend in January of 2020, resulting in a period of time of feeling uncreative. Looking back, Aesop recalls, “The world got real weird during those months. I knew at some point I had to get back to making something. Make a beat. Draw a picture. Write. Just go. But the idea of making a beat felt like math homework, and drawing is just so hard. Writing is hard too, but at some point I had to pick one.”

With writing as the chosen path, Aesop hit up Blockhead to send over some beats. At the beginning there wasn’t a plan for an album, or any particular plan beyond creating some songs. However, it didn’t take long for one song to become a few, then a handful, until finally an album was born.