Nearly three decades on from forging one of hip-hop’s most enduring creative partnerships, multi-hyphenate MC Aesop Rock andprolificproducer Blockhead have reunited to drop Trouble Mountain, a 17-track follow up to their acclaimed 2021 album Garbology. Ahead of the album’s release tonight, the duo have shared a visually stunning animated video for “Ants” by longtime visual collaborator Justin CORO Kaufman.
Trouble Mountain takes its inspiration from the Poconos resort commercials that blanketed New York airwaves during the pair’s childhoods: idyllic promises of relaxation, reinvention, and escape that lingered long after the commercials ended. Trouble Mountain turns that familiar fantasy into a fictional destination of its own, where the search for a better life proves every bit as strange, complicated, and disorienting as the one patrons left behind.
Together, they return to the ideas that have connected their work since 2001’s Labor Days: alienation, repetition, labor, memory, and the persistent hope that there might be somewhere else worth going. But Trouble Mountain isn’t an escape record in the traditional sense. Instead, it asks a more complicated question: why are we always trying to escape in the first place? “Growing up in NY we were bombarded with TV ads tempting us to visit the Poconos,” states Aesop. “I do not ski, but I did have relatives who lived in the Poconos area and I spent many weekends there as a kid—though, of course not in a sick party lodge. Trouble Mountain is me and Blockhead’s (fake) Ski Lodge where you might meet your future spouse or you might have to fight some local ski gangs – (which I assume is a thing.) Anything can happen. (It’s a metaphor for life, y’all!)”
Trouble Mountain marks Aesop Rock’s 13th studio album, and finds one of hip-hop’s most distinctive writers operating at full capacity. Across the record, he transforms family history, work, memory, and the absurd mechanics of modern life into vivid, deeply human reflections. Blockhead’s production is equally vital, pairing the duo’s unmistakable chemistry with lean, evolving soundscapes that feel both familiar and newly exploratory.
Trouble Mountain is available now on vinyl, CD, cassette, download, and streaming, along with an array of exclusive merchandise, including t-shirts, sweatshirts, beanies, scarves, “lift passes”, mugs, and more ataesoprock.com.
