Aesop Rock’s new video for “All City Nerve Map” illuminates his honesty and rawness as an artist, transcending the digital age. It aims to expose life as it is, rather than what it could be, reducing the commonly held notion of a utopian place for music.

It is a grungy take on existence and sound, through deep creativity and a transformative meditation. It feels nostalgic of a time that endured before. A time likely individual to the artist, but also resonating with the listener regardless.

The new video for “All City Nerve Map” is a fierce standout from his newly released solo album Integrated Tech Solutions. Maintaining his aesthetic, the video for the self-produced song is also self-directed and edited, representing a distorted Aesop Rock rhyming in an abandoned house.

The framework of derelict, deepens the effect of the track’s grimy psychedelia. In keeping with similar previous releases, the album’s imaginary group namesake was induced to offer an official statement on the release: “People outside the ITS ecosystem often ask – ‘What does ITS™ actually do?’ and ‘What will I be able to do with ITS that I couldn’t do myself?’ Our answer is always the same: ‘All type of shit”

“All City Nerve Map” follows previous singles “Kyanite Toothpick (ft Hanni El Khatib), “Infinity Fill Goose Down”, “By The River” and “Mindful Solutionism” which maps humankind’s advancement from modern agriculture before taking a turn towards atomic bombs, cigarettes and surveillance cameras.

Photo credit: Brett Padelford