Asher Roth & Nottz Raw Enlist Blink-182 Drummer Travis Barker for Self-described "Supercalifragilistic-mystic Odyssey," RAWTHER EP (RetroHash)

"Ash Roth, Trav Bark, Nottz Raw... supercalifragilistic-mystic odyssey / When Travis hits the crashing kick and Nottz is on the beat / When Ash is spittin' nasty sh*t, it makes it hard to breathe / Masters of the craft, it's the last of a dying breed," Asher Roth ferociously rhymes during his introductory "Goin' Down" verse on his latest cleverly-titled Travis Barker and Nottz Raw-assisted release, RAWTHER EP. Roth's newest Punk Rock-tinged extended player has seemingly been in-the-works since he, Nottz, and Barker first met during their concert-opening stint on Blink-182's 2009 "One Way to Bonerville" reunion tour, which in turn, helped spawn a plentiful working relationship, as well as Travis Barker's "Sour Patch Kids" Remix from his remarkable mid-album cycle mixtape, Seared Foie Gras with Quince & Cranberry. RAWTHER is of course, the unofficial follow-up to Asher & Nottz's Misfits and Joanna Newsom-sampling RAWTH EP (2011) with an added "ER" to account for their newly-added third member; "Travis Barker is on the drums, and it's just like so stupid. He's trying all these new things and messing around. Obviously, he's a music guy. So, he's sampling all this Indie Rock—whether it be [The] White Stripes or all this other stuff," Roth told HipHopDX within an interview conducted during the EP's earliest formative stages. Although The White Stripes and Indie Rock-laden samples don't seem to have stuck throughout the past few years-worth of editing, Asher Roth's proclamation that he didn't "even know if you can classify [RAWTHER] as Hip-Hop. It's almost Rock music that's coming from the boom bap, and there's elements of Psychedelic Trip-Rock" still apparently seems to ring true throughout the course of its expansive six tracks.


"Here we are in February 2016 and 'RAWTHER' is alive. The collaborative project constructed by Nottz Raw, Travis Barker, and myself is a celebration of years of friendship and a marriage of our boisterous personalities. Although Nottz may seem reserved at first, the animated alien shines bright behind the boards. Travis' uninhibited animal roars with each rip of the snare," Asher Roth, or the project's self-described "exuberant voice," wrote within RAWTHER's accompanying RetroHash press release. RAWTHER has been relentlessly teased on-and-off for the past 4-5 years since Asher & Nottz's RAWTH EP, although, in the interim, Roth has managed to quietly unleash a number of endless play-worth (in my opinion, at least) projects including Pabst & Jazz, Seared Foie Gras with Quince & Cranberry, The GreenHouse Effect, Vol. 2, nearly an entire album's-worth of scrapped Is This Too Orange? and The Spaghetti Tree singles, and 2015's crop of incredibly noteworthy Hash Wednesdays Soundcloud loosies. Following the completion of their long in-the-works RAWTHER EP sessions, Asher, Travis & Nottz decided "it was only right to call upon NYC-based sky dweller, Aristotle [Torres], to help bring the RAWTHER world to life." RAWTHER director Torres managed to get a hold of a few GoPro prototypes, with which they were able to construct a unique 6-camera rig and in turn, "360 degrees of insanity;" wherein we've since been able to view the endlessly creative foursome's Noisey-premiered red, yellow, and blue-tinted fisheye-scoped preview of EP tracks "Blow Yr Head," Harry Potter-referencing "Voldermort," and aforementioned stand-out "Goin' Down."