Bliss N Eso (28/06/2013)
It’s a cold winter’s day outside, but look up, because there’s a Circus in the Sky. Bliss n Eso’s new album is finally here! We settled in last week to chat with Eso before the album dropped on this most sacred of days.
Sacred we say? Well, it’s the 28th, and according to Eso, 28 is the group’s omen number. “The first newspaper article was on page 28, the first row of seats that took us out to the States was on row 28, even in the ancient Chinese lettering I think it is, the 2 and the 8 bring prosperity and health.” And prosper they have. Circus in the Sky is the boys’ fifth studio album and has been described as no less than “their most powerful message to date.”
Without deviating from the “pure basics of the craft,” you know, those “dope rhymes, dope beats, dope scratches,” Eso says this album is unlike any of their previous records. Attributed to the group’s maturation, he describes how the music has changed with them. “This album has a lot of real moments that have happened in our lives. It’s very deep, kinda introspective of things that have been in our life so long but we’ve never really put in a track before.”
Home Is Where the Heart Is was the second single release and is reminiscent of some of these “real moments.” “You’ve got Bliss rappin’ about how we all got together in high school, and me talking about my relationship with my missus. There’s all kinds of stories that have been so predominant in our life that we’ve always talked about in interviews but we’ve never really wrote songs about. The amount of characters there are on this album…”
And speaking of characters, it’s an Aussie hip-hop dream come true. A key track on this album, Reservoir Dogs, encompasses some of the countries biggest MCs – Seth Sentry, Pez, 360 and Drapht – alongside the main men themselves. “I thought that was kinda crazy coz everyone has their own fan base and everyone sides to their guy, and with this we just wanted everyone to shut the fuck up and realize that we’re all mates and it’s you guys making a competition of us.”
From once sampling Angus and Julia Stone, Bliss n Eso have stuck with the collaboration with Aussie folk artists. Sarah Blasko gets a feature on the album in the track Next Frontier. “Sarah, she’s a great song writer. She’s got a beautiful voice, and I remember just going to my mates place and saying “you got that new Sarah Blasko album?! And he’s like “man, I just broke up with my girlfriend, I can’t keep listening to that shit!” It provokes such emotion. She can kinda bring the tear to the eye and, you know, we’ve been a huge fan of that song and what it kind of represents. For me it’s kinda like being on the front of a pirate ship conquering the world.” Another track in the album features another local female singer, Emma Louise. “Yeah, the women get to take over the chorus and the vocals and it’s just kind of like an angel’s fucking farting.”
So here it is, the wait is over. Circus in the Sky has landed. “It’s called Circus in the Sky because it resembles so many characters, so many tricks, so many moods, and so many colours. It’s just something up there in the stars basically.” So quit reading! Go get your hands on this brilliant bit of work. The boys hit the road on July 4th, and if you haven’t seen them in action before, get down to see them this time, because “[they]’re just as absolutely fucking excited as the devil would be with a fucking steak and a naked hooker in front of him… nah that’s terrible! But the devil would be excited about that.”
Rebecca Costanzo
Sacred we say? Well, it’s the 28th, and according to Eso, 28 is the group’s omen number. “The first newspaper article was on page 28, the first row of seats that took us out to the States was on row 28, even in the ancient Chinese lettering I think it is, the 2 and the 8 bring prosperity and health.” And prosper they have. Circus in the Sky is the boys’ fifth studio album and has been described as no less than “their most powerful message to date.”
Without deviating from the “pure basics of the craft,” you know, those “dope rhymes, dope beats, dope scratches,” Eso says this album is unlike any of their previous records. Attributed to the group’s maturation, he describes how the music has changed with them. “This album has a lot of real moments that have happened in our lives. It’s very deep, kinda introspective of things that have been in our life so long but we’ve never really put in a track before.”
Home Is Where the Heart Is was the second single release and is reminiscent of some of these “real moments.” “You’ve got Bliss rappin’ about how we all got together in high school, and me talking about my relationship with my missus. There’s all kinds of stories that have been so predominant in our life that we’ve always talked about in interviews but we’ve never really wrote songs about. The amount of characters there are on this album…”
And speaking of characters, it’s an Aussie hip-hop dream come true. A key track on this album, Reservoir Dogs, encompasses some of the countries biggest MCs – Seth Sentry, Pez, 360 and Drapht – alongside the main men themselves. “I thought that was kinda crazy coz everyone has their own fan base and everyone sides to their guy, and with this we just wanted everyone to shut the fuck up and realize that we’re all mates and it’s you guys making a competition of us.”
From once sampling Angus and Julia Stone, Bliss n Eso have stuck with the collaboration with Aussie folk artists. Sarah Blasko gets a feature on the album in the track Next Frontier. “Sarah, she’s a great song writer. She’s got a beautiful voice, and I remember just going to my mates place and saying “you got that new Sarah Blasko album?! And he’s like “man, I just broke up with my girlfriend, I can’t keep listening to that shit!” It provokes such emotion. She can kinda bring the tear to the eye and, you know, we’ve been a huge fan of that song and what it kind of represents. For me it’s kinda like being on the front of a pirate ship conquering the world.” Another track in the album features another local female singer, Emma Louise. “Yeah, the women get to take over the chorus and the vocals and it’s just kind of like an angel’s fucking farting.”
So here it is, the wait is over. Circus in the Sky has landed. “It’s called Circus in the Sky because it resembles so many characters, so many tricks, so many moods, and so many colours. It’s just something up there in the stars basically.” So quit reading! Go get your hands on this brilliant bit of work. The boys hit the road on July 4th, and if you haven’t seen them in action before, get down to see them this time, because “[they]’re just as absolutely fucking excited as the devil would be with a fucking steak and a naked hooker in front of him… nah that’s terrible! But the devil would be excited about that.”
Rebecca Costanzo