Worst kept secret: I’ve been producing music under the moniker Aeon for about 14 years now, officially.
(sidetone: that’s insane.)
Just under 10 years ago, I was given the blessing of induction into a crew of MCs and producers called the Lessondary; a collective consisting of some of personal favorite MCs and good friends. We’ve been plugging along in subdivisions, as smaller groups and solo acts: Tanya Morgan (Von Pea & Donwill), Ilyas, Che Grand, Elucid, Jermiside, Rob Cave (FKA Spec Boogie), Brickbeats, and myself. There are other, less active members, but the core (and the focus of this post) are the aforementioned gents. Over the last 10 years, I’ve had the pleasure and honor of providing sound beds for all of these guys, for one-offs, solo and group projects. Fast forward to now, where (under the auspices and guiding hand of Jermiside and HipNOTT founder Kevin Nottingham) we’ve assembled as a full on posse for an entire album.
Here's one of my favorite songs that I produced, Fool Proof Plan.
It’s been a long time coming (hence the title of the album) but it’s finally here, it’s real, and we’re super excited to share it with the world. I’ve got a bunch of production contributions on the project.
In May of 2016, in preparation for the album’s marketing push, we all agreed to hole up in an Airbnb for a weekend and put our noses to the grindstone, shoot some videos, record some music and make some pictures. A dream I’d had for years - ever since I started learning my way around a camera - was to photograph the squad.
I ended up shooting with my Pentax 67 and my recently-purchased Canon EOS Elan 7. It rained incessantly, so between the work going on inside (we shot about 5 videos maybe, and recorded a song, practically simultaneously) and the weather, the window to pull guys away and do photo shoots was pretty small. For all but a few of the Pentax shots, I used Tri-X, rounding it off with an expired roll of Fuji 160C. There was a little open-air alley/courtyard situation enclosed by the building we were staying in - gave me a little depth and framing options, so we did a quick and dirty shoot outside. Overall I’m really pleased with the shots. Would’ve loved to get some color stuff in there as well, as well as group shots (and a shot of Brickbeats) but we did good for the time, and some shots ended up looking pretty epic, thanks to the unceasing wonders of medium format film.
The real goal is to document the squad on tour. There’s a really interesting visual story in the goings on behind really smart, really talented, criminally underrated guys who’ve learned the beauty of making music that appeals to the music-lover in ourselves. Especially the fact that we’ve been working with one another for so long. There’s a camaraderie present that can’t be manufactured. I hope that before long I can be a fly on the wall and really document an overseas tour.
We’ll see.
You can view the the full shoot posted in my Portfolio. Check out Ahead of Schedule on iTunes, Spotify, and Bandcamp.