Blockhead

New York-based producer Blockhead has forged a singular approach to abstract hip-hop, operating both as a standalone instrumental artist and as the primary beatmaker for emcees such as Aesop Rock, Cage, and Billy Woods. His productions draw on funk, rock, and jazz while showcasing a knack for weaving unusual vocal fragments into the arrangements. The solo outings Downtown Science from 2005 and The Music Scene from 2009 juxtapose buoyant moments with darker undercurrents, drawing on his personal history, connections, and broader life events. Throughout the 2010s he issued complete collaborative albums with Illogic and Marq Spekt, while the 2019 set Free Sweatpants included appearances from Homeboy Sandman and Open Mike Eagle. He rejoined forces with Aesop Rock for the 2021 project Garbology.

Tony Simon grew up in Manhattan as one of seven siblings. His father’s painter-and-sculptor lifestyle embodied a free-spirited outlook, whereas his mother’s career as a social worker reflected a more grounded disposition; together these influences shaped an unconventional childhood that nevertheless steered him toward music. He initially intended to rhyme until crossing paths with Aesop Rock during the single year he spent at Boston University in 1994. Once he heard Aesop deliver verses, Simon set aside the microphone and devoted himself to production. He handled the majority of the beats for Aesop’s earliest projects, among them the self-released Music for Earthworms in 1997 and Appleseed in 1999, as well as the official debut Float that Mush Records put out in 2000. Mush also issued Blockhead’s own first collection of beats, Blockhead’s Broken Beats, the following year. When Aesop moved to the fledgling Def Jux imprint in 2000, Blockhead remained his chief collaborator, supplying nine tracks for the 2001 album Labor Days whose reception from critics and underground listeners alike proved decisive and prompted the 2002 EP Daylight, built around that album’s standout single.

Capitalizing on the momentum, Blockhead ventured into independent work. Although never conceived as a serious endeavor, he teamed with longtime associate Jeremy Gibson, known as Jer, to form the comedy-rap duo Party Fun Action Committee, whose Def Jux debut Let’s Get Serious surfaced in 2003. He likewise contributed beats to other Def Jux artists including Murs, Hangar 18, and Cage. For his own material he sought deals elsewhere and ultimately landed at the British electronic label Ninja Tune. The Insomniac Olympics EP appeared in 2003, followed by the more cinematic, down-tempo full-length Music by Cavelight in 2004 and the Manhattan tribute Downtown Science in 2005. His contributions to Aesop’s catalog tapered off until the 2007 album None Shall Pass. That same year Blockhead independently released the warmer Uncle Tony’s Coloring Book. The Music Scene, issued in 2009, gained additional intricacy through his adoption of Ableton. Three years later he closed his Ninja Tune tenure with Interludes After Midnight, an album that revisited the sonic character of the 1980s and late 1990s.

In 2013 he paired with Illogic for Capture the Sun and produced Billy Woods’ Dour Candy. The solo album Bells and Whistles arrived in 2014, the same year he and Marq Spekt delivered Justplaywitit; their follow-up Keep Playin’ came out in 2016. Young Heavy Souls reissued Uncle Tony’s Coloring Book on vinyl in 2017 and co-released The Art of the Sample, constructed from the De Wolfe music-library catalog. Backwoodz Studioz issued both Funeral Balloons and the Blockhead-produced Known Unknowns for Billy Woods that year. Blockhead stayed with the label for 2019’s Free Sweatpants, an album blending instrumentals with guest verses from Aesop Rock, Armand Hammer, Hemlock Ernst, and others. Future Archive Recordings released the instrumental projects Bubble Bath in 2019 and Space Werewolves Will Be the End of Us All in 2021. Garbology, his first full-length reunion with Aesop Rock, appeared on Rhymesayers the same year.