Pitchfork

It's obvious by now that the running thing is a MacGuffin; whether it's savvy cred co-option or some Wizard behind a Swoosh-adorned curtain sprinkling his patronage on random corners of the music world out of pure goodwill, the artists in the Nike + Original Run series don't necessarily have exercise in mind. If you couldn't tell from LCD Soundsystem's liberal treatment of the conceit on their 45:33, it's made plain from the first 15 minutes of All Day, Aesop Rock's contribution to the series and the third overall. There's an apt warmup built from watery keyboards, gently-prodding fingersnaps, and a sparse, thudding downbeat-- the kind of preternatural mid-tempo magic that could sync with every meeting of sneaker sole and pavement. Aesop Rock only gently reminds us he's there while we're distracted by incidental Bomb Squad-esque squeaks and tin-can funk guitar patterns, but by the 13-minute mark, we're already cooling down, and voice, guitar, and drums grow sluggish like a Walkman on its last bit of battery power. This is intended either for a very untrained, very stoned exerciser, or it's less for a workout and more for Aes Rock's driving commute.

Again, not that this matters, or at least it doesn't have to-- James Murphy attacked it like an artistic challenge, a box he had to work his way out of, and it pushed him to unexpected heights. All Day doesn't fare so well, possibly because Aes is better at the sprint than at pacing himself. He claims to have made the track hoping that "the sound was constantly fresh and attractive, as if the runner were moving through a set of differing cities or landscapes." The "different city" thing would have been a great idea if executed differently; before hearing it, I imagined hearing hints of different regional flavors (Southern, West coast, Bay Area, choose your own incongruous adventure and insert here) that would push Aes' unique voice and style into new contexts. Of course, that's not what we get, and he probably meant he just wanted something that would hold the "runner's" attention. We don't even get that. This extended track ends up rather homogeneous, stretching Aes' anemic brand of gritty NYC funk dangerously thin over the course of 45 minutes.

The drums often feel canned; the busier, tougher beats are diluted by keyboard parts that are awkward and unimaginitive; and the omnipresent guitar parts are more inventive but often sound out-of-place. Aesop himself continues to slow down and make his syllables count rather than cramming them like he was getting paid per word, as he did on the Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives EP, where he bridged the gap between the denser, stranger production of Bazooka Tooth and the classical-sampling coffeehouse leanings of Float and Labor Days. He even produced some pretty good beats on his own from the Fast Cars EP, too, making All Day even more of a head-scratcher. But when he does rap here, which isn't often, he's half party-rocking MC, half personal trainer, just repeating a few key phrases that dart in and out between the beats like a runner's mantra. Whether the lyrics are apt for exercising isn't the point; it's the rhythm of his words that push the track forward when the energy lags (at any rate, lines about paper-bag disguises are better than hearing "shame on you" over and over again). His laconic, unhurried approach is one of the few things that work on All Day, leaving me anxious to hear his next project, so long as he doesn't produce the entire thing himself.