On his second self-released piece of music, the Appleseed EP, Aesop Rock began his longstanding habit of releasing prolonged EPs shortly after major albums. Most of these stopgap releases feel like short B-sides collections cobbled together from whichever songs didn’t make the cut of the preceding record. Appleseed, though, marks a huge step forward from Aes’ debut LP. It is on this EP that Aes begins to slip and slide through bars — he’s not yet the preternatural emcee he would later become but that side of him begins to show its face. On “Sick Friend,” for example, Aes spends the early part of the song sucking wind behind a zippy orchestral sample, before catching up with the song near the end. In that synchronous moment, Appleseed goes from a pretty-good EP to a fascinating piece in Aes’ music history. During the final track, “Odessa,” Aes manages to hit his stride for the full length of a song, rolling l’s and popping p’s over new age flutes and jangling guitar lines. It’s the first essential listen of his catalog. Appleseed also offers a glimpse into what might have been. More than any other release, it sounds as though it was intended to be a part of the traditional New York hip-hop scene, especially on “Dryspell,” with its Ornette Coleman sample. It’s a great track, but it’s also the most traditional-sounding song Aes ever wrote. Most notably, Appleseed marks Aes’ first collaboration with instrumental trip-hop artists and producer Blockhead. The two would collaborate many times over the course of Aes’ career, and Blockhead’s hypnotic and multilayered approach to hip-hop production was arguably as instrumental to Aes’ notoriety as his vocal skill, at least at the start.