PRE-ORDER: Chester Watson "Fish don't climb trees" LP
PRE-ORDER: Chester Watson "Fish don't climb trees" LP
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THIS IS A PRE-ORDER: We expect this to ship on or around SEPTEMBER 4th, 2026. Any items ordered with this will be held until they can ship together. If you need other items faster please place a separate order for those items.
Though Chester Watson is only 26, the St. Louis-born rapper and producer has seen enough for several lifetimes-and raps as if he's tapped into many more. But after a few years of highs, lows, and traumatic odysseys, he was able to stare straight into the abyss and conquer it. The regained confidence is exhibited on fish don't climb trees, the largely self-produced new album that reaffirms him as one of rap's great auteurs. The willingness to both expand his repertoire laterally and dive deeper down each rabbit hole has made Watson's one of the most quietly rewarding catalogs in hip-hop.
Being true to his fractured, discordant feelings requires a prismatic approach. And so you get fish's exhilarating hairpin turns: from downtempo dub ("bora bora") to 808s rattling through a haunted house ("tourniquet"), beats that sound as if they're molting into new shapes in real time (the two-song suite of "daze" and "grey theory") to ones that that plunge to the bottom of a pocket ("spirits"). Over all of these, Watson proves more dexterous than ever as both a writer and vocalist, able to get his point across in ten syllables or two, in a full sprint or with his feet planted firmly in the mud. The album's title comes from the maybe-apocryphal Einstein quote, about how a fish judged by it's ability to climb trees will "spend it's whole life believing it is stupid." For Watson, this meant embracing the cheery first half of the quote ("Everybody is a genius"), but also being cognizant of the dark undercurrents that flow just beneath seemingly innocent misjudgments and mis-categorizations. "As a Black person, we're always judged on criteria that are literally meaningless," he says. With fish don't climb trees, he's committed to only one set of standards: his own.
Track List:
1 Fish Don't Climb Trees
2 East End
3 Eyes Closed
4 Tourniquet
5 Money & Love
6 Bora Bora
7 Daze
8 Grey Theory
9 I Feel Alive
10 Spirits
11 Mirrors
Shipping, Returns & Cancellations
Shipping, Returns & Cancellations
SHIPPING:
We ship Monday through Friday. Orders typically ship within 24-72 hours. Tracking is sent to the email you provide at check out and may take a few days to become active.
Any items ordered with Pre-Orders will be held until they can all ship together. If you need in stock items faster please order them seperately.
RETURNS:
Returns are only accepted on damaged or defective items. Return requests must be made within 7 days of delivery. Please save the original packaging.
If you own a Crosley, Victrola or any other lower end turntable that has no ability to adjust the weight of the tone arm and are experiencing skipping on a new record please try the "Penny Trick". Simply place a penny on the top of the cartidge and it should provide enough weight to resolve your issues. While a great entry to the world of vinyl we do recommend upgrading to a turntable with a tone arm that can be adjusted as this issue will randomly occur. We do not take returns in these cases.
Resellers: If you are buying from us for resale we honestly don't mind. However, please don't panic if something you bought suddenly isn't flipable for more money and then try to return stuff to us because you feel like you made a bad investment choice. Despite our outsized reputation we're a small shop, not amazon. Absorbing these costs adds up on places like ours. Plus a little patience always tends to pay off.
CANCELLATIONS:
Due to an increasing number of payment processors no longer returning transaction fees to sellers on cancelled orders and rising labor costs any orders or pre-orders that need to be cancelled before shipment will be assessed a 5% cancellation/restocking fee on the order total including shipping and any other taxes or fees associated with the order.
Thank you for your understanding.
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