Aethiopes (album)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Aethiopes
Billy Woods
chronology
Haram

(2021) 		Aethiopes
(2022) 		Church
(2022)

Aethiopes is a studio album by American rapper

ancient European name for African people.[4] The album came along with the announcement of a US tour running May through October 2022, and an appearance at the Dutch music festival Le Guess Who? in November.[5]

Style and reception

Aethiopes ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic81/100[6]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[7]
Beats Per Minute88%[8]
Pitchfork8.0/10[2]
Spectrum Culture80%[1]
Sputnikmusic4.0/5[9]

According to the review aggregator

New York underground's best" never phone it in, but after a string of feature-heavy tracks, the featureless closing two feel like "tonal whiplash, tuning back into your regularly scheduled program." But ultimately, it is a "slight distraction" with Preservation "mak[ing] the most of each artist's potential set against Woods' consistent production aesthetics."[1]

Beats Per Minute's Rob Hakimian notes that "with the title Aethiopes being an ancient word for African, the cover image borrowed from the 1661 painting Two Moors by

Black diaspora at large at play." Woods "is drawing from pockets of African and European history" while Preservation "is pulling obscure samples from geographical sources that perfectly interlock with the tone and concept." The producer is "tuned into the rapper's heady concepts and is dreaming up the vision right alongside him from first thought to last" with a "symbiosis between producer and rapper [which] is key to the album's unmitigated success." Pres "arms the rapper with the perfectly-sourced sounds and samples for each of his forays" including a "drone of African horns" on "No Hard Feelings" whose "shifting pitch pushing Woods' bars to greater, more exasperated lengths as he flits from one African's horrific demise to the next", "Wharves" which "features whispered percussion that is dominated by the glassy echoes of mbira – a usually joyous sound that becomes hollow and cold when combined with the rapper's words about shipwrecked German colonisers turning to cannibalism to survive", and "The Doldrums" with an instrumental "so stutteringly atmospheric that it feels zombified, while Woods shifts between times and settings with hallucinogenic fluidity; images of horses being thrown overboard mingle with snapshots of dirty urban corners, all interspersed with unsettling lessons." Woods and Pres have "made an album that lures you in with rhymes and tones that are perfectly attuned to each other, augment each other and make it clear that there is something important being told here", comparing their narrative-building work to "heavily stylised comic strips – though these are more Alan Moore than weekend funnies." Aethiopes "overwhelming atmosphere invites you to pore over the tracks, to take in each detail the light reaches, then comb over them again for everything you've missed", with details which "will still be getting discovered, decoded and debated in a few generations' time."[8]

Year-end lists

Aethiopes year-end lists
Publication # Ref.
Gorilla vs. Bear 2 [10]
Loud and Quiet 31 [11]
The New York Times
(Jon Pareles) 		9 [12]
Pitchfork 28 [13]
The Ringer 3 [14]
Sound Opinions
(Greg Kot) 		9 [15]
Stereogum 5 [16]
Treble 1 [17]
Vulture
 		N/A [18]
The Wire 7 [19]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Billy Woods and Preservation. All tracks are produced by Preservation, with co-production by Glow in the Dark Flowers on track 6 and Woods on track 9

Aethiopes track listing
No.TitleLength
1."Asylum"2:42
2."No Hard Feelings"2:16
3."Wharves"3:08
4."Sauvage" (featuring
Breeze Brewin)
2:24
9."Haarlem" (featuring Fatboi Sharif)3:19
10."Versailles" (featuring Despot)3:08
11."Protoevangelium" (featuring Shinehead)2:24
12."Remorseless"2:50
13."Smith + Cross"2:22
Total length:39:09

Personnel

  • Billy Woods – vocals
  • Paul "Willie Green" Womack – mixing engineer, mastering engineer
  • Tevin Prince – assistant engineer
  • Jean Guillaume Daval –
    music arranger

References

  1. ^ a b c Stremfel, Thomas (April 18, 2022). "Billy Woods: Aethiopes". Spectrum Culture. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c Van Nguyen, Dean (April 11, 2022). "Billy Woods: Aethiopes Album Review". Pitchfork. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
  3. ^ Minsker, Evan (March 13, 2022). "Billy Woods and Preservation Announce New Album Aethiopes". Pitchfork. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
  4. ^ Breihan, Tom (April 13, 2022). "Billy Woods & Preservation's New Album Is a Disorienting Masterwork". Stereogum. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
  5. ^ Sacher, Andrew (May 13, 2022). "Billy Woods Announces Aethiopes Tour". BrooklynVegan. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
  6. ^ a b "Aethiopes by Billy Woods Reviews and Tracks". Metacritic. Retrieved December 15, 2022.
  7. ^ Simpson, Paul (April 8, 2022). "billy woods - Aethiopes Album Reviews, Songs & More". AllMusic. Retrieved December 14, 2022.
  8. ^ a b Hakimian, Rob (April 12, 2022). "Album Review: Billy Woods - Aethiopes". Beats Per Minute. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
  9. ^ "Review: Billy Woods - Aethiopes". Sputnikmusic. April 21, 2022. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
  10. ^ Cantalini, Chris (December 1, 2022). "Gorilla vs. Bear's Albums of 2022". Gorilla vs. Bear. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  11. ^ "Loud and Quiet Albums of the Year 2022". Loud and Quiet. November 28, 2022. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
  12. ^ Pareles, Jon (December 1, 2022). "The New York Times: Jon Pareles' Best Albums of 2022". The New York Times. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  13. ^ Green, Dylan (December 6, 2022). "The 50 Best Albums of 2022". Pitchfork. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
  14. ^ Sayles, Justin (December 6, 2022). "The 33 Best Albums of 2022". The Ringer. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
  15. ^ "Sound Opinions #889: The Best Albums of 2022, Plus RIP Christine McVie". December 9, 2022. Retrieved December 11, 2022.
  16. ^ Madden, Emma (December 6, 2022). "The 50 Best Albums of 2022". Stereogum. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
  17. ^ Hickman, Langdon (December 5, 2022). "The 50 Best Albums of 2022". Treble. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
  18. ^ Jenkins, Craig (December 7, 2022). "The Best Albums of 2022". Vulture. Retrieved December 8, 2022.
  19. ^ "The Wire's Releases of the Year 2022". The Wire. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
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