EQ Magazine - February 2008 - (Page 8) Punch In WO R K F LOW AESOP ROCK’S HOME RECORDING METHODS by Merrick Angle Coming out of the same scene as Cannibal Ox and Company Flow, Ian Bavitz, a.k.a. Aesop Rock, writes and produces his own dense slices of hip-hop, and is generating quite a buzz doing so. With his gravely “Noo Yawk” baritone voice and his loping beats, Bavitz is clearly approaching hip-hop from a different angle. And the kids love it. But Bavitz, for all his critical acclaim, sighs when the subject of recording is brought up. “Recording music, to me, is a deep process, he says from his home in San ” Francisco. “I get caught up in the details. I comb over songs for a long time— probably too long. I think I got that from art school, where I was taught to constantly re-look at my work in an attempt to see it in a way that I had never seen it before. Because of that, I’m never afraid to scrap a beat or a lyric, or to cut a song down and then rebuild it. That’s a blessing, but it’s also a curse. ” Bavitz’s latest release, None Shall Pass [Definitive Jux], is the first recorded in his new studio digs, but it doesn’t lack the fidelity of his past albums—all recorded in decidedly more posh surroundings. “I just moved all of my old gear into a room in my new house, and started laying down tracks like nothing had ever changed, he says. “I wanted ” to try out a new mic, so I splurged on a Neumann M 147. I fell in love with it— it’s so warm sounding. But, besides that, it’s just my old gear, and I’m recording my old way. ” Rising at the crack of noon, coffee in hand, Bavitz says he starts his daily ses- Aesop Rock, sans sleep, after a late-night session. CHRISSY PIPER 8 EQ FEBRUARY 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com
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