Prolific rapper and producer Aesop Rock has just announced his first proper solo album in three years called Integrated Tech Solutions, which is set for a November 10 release by Rhymesayers Entertainment.

The announcement lands alongside a video for the album’s inadvertent mission statement “Mindful Solutionism,” which charts humanity’s progress from the wheel to modern agriculture before taking a misguided hairpin turn into atomic bombs, cigarettes, and surveillance cameras… or as Rock succinctly sums up “We cannot be trusted with the stuff that we come up with.”

Integrated Tech Solutionsfronts as a concept album about “lifestyle- and industry-specific applications designed to curate a desired multi-experience,” adopting bouts of ludicrous corporate speak to pry the parasitic business culture away from the parts of life that truly matter.

Amid its streamlined psychedelic production style and features ranging from Billy Woods, Hanni El Khatib, Rob Sonic, Nikki Jean, and Lealani Teano, the album’s 18 tracks sound like the past and future at once.

The album artwork is illustrated by renowned artist Justin “Coro” Kaufman, who was also the creative director and illustrator for the “Mindful Solutionism” video as well as the artwork for Aesop’s 2020 album Spirit World Field Guide.

Largely self-produced, Integrated Tech Solutions catches Rock at his leanest and most innovative, leveraging “Solutionism”’s careening bounce against the wistful “By the River” or the slow creep of “Salt and Pepper Squid.”

Always on the search for new sources of creative invigoration, Aesop worked on many of the beats for the album while traveling, traditionally a part of his process that he would only do at home in the studio. The effect of the constantly shifting external stimuli is a record that sounds itself like an organism growing, mutating, and teetering on edge of dystopian abyss.

As listeners have come to expect though, Rock is cuttingly funny and slyly profound at once. “I’ve been doing laps of the lost worlds,” he raps on “All City Nerve Map,” sounding at once wearied and reinvigorated. “I can draw a map to the raw nerve.”

Integrated Tech Solutions Tracklist

1. The ITS Way
2. Mindful Solutionism
3. Infinity Fill Goose Down
4. Living Curfew (feat. billy woods)
5. Pigeonometry
6. Kyanite Toothpick (feat. Hanni El Khatib)
7. 100 Feet Tall
8. Salt and Pepper Squid
9. Time Moves Differently Here
10. Aggressive Steven
11. Bermuda (feat. Lealani Teano)
12. By The River
13. All City Nerve Map
14. Forward Compatibility Engine (feat. Rob Sonic)
15. On Failure
16. Solid Gold
17. Vititus
18. Black Snow (feat. Nikki Jean)

Photo Credit: Brett Padelford