“We have a whole counsel situation over here,” Earl Sweatshirt said on Wednesday night’s Stone Island POMPEII // UTILITY in-store listening event. “I think that’s why it works well. We review everything from every single perspective.”

This was just one of the gems Earl dropped at the intimate New York City listening party and panel earlier this week. Sat alongside his POMPEII // UTILITY collaborators MIKE and SURF GANG, the trio, in conversation with the Stone Island team and album artist Sharif Farrag, authentically reflected on the creative process of the communally awaited collaborative opus, which is an endeavor MIKE refers to as one that’s rooted in an “unspoken creative synergy.”

“I think we all traded methods on this project,” Sweatshirt expounded on that sentiment. “We all came to the table of Ableton, here … Working with MIKE and SURF GANG on this project, I learned how to simplify my process. I learned how to play nice with others. I learned how to do that. I learned how to make beats with n*ggas. I thought I knew that before, but I didn’t know how to do that before. I learned how to do that with the gang.”

The project is split into two discs, with the first, POMPEII – thematically rooted in destruction and its aftermath – handled entirely by MIKE, and the second, more practical portion, UTILITY, handled by Earl. Totalling 33 tracks from front to back, it’s the SURF GANG production that strings each song to its predecessor and its successor, the collective’s Harrison actually being the one who pushed for the project’s materialization.

After teaming up with Earl for “Making the Band (Danity Kane),” the pair pivoted to POMPEII // UTILITY, unknowingly. “All of the conversations in those moments were anticlimactic,” reflects Earl on the early stages of deciding to drop a joint album. “It was really just like, ‘Yo, you trying to put out a project?’ and we were all like ‘Yeah,’”

“The only thing that was different,” he continued, “was that I didn’t open any of the beats and listen to them unless I knew I was about to follow through. I cared about all of these beats, so I didn’t want to play them out until they got bland.” He also noted that “each one of the tracks has been [his] favorite at a different point in time.”

evilgiane spoke about the role New York City played in shaping the SURF GANG superproducer collective’s sound, and how that, too, translated heavily into the project. “I grew up listening to all kinds of hip hop – the fried shit, the heavy-bass shit, extra hood shit. My mom told me to keep an open mind,” he began. “Every time a rapper and a subgenre of music comes from New York, and that keeps me inspired and not doing the same thing over and over.”

POMPEII // UTILITY is a perfect example of the collective’s aversion to repetition, taking the form of a true tapestry of different hip-hop, ambient, and alternative influences. Building on the boundless sonic inspiration, the creative process then fell into place naturally as a result.

“We were both working on SURF GANG beats at the same time, so we wanted to just keep that going,” explained Earl. “We were making beats from scratch until like ridiculous hours,” added MIKE.

Why? “Because it was all about capturing these moments and getting the most out of them,” continued Earl. “Harrison has a folder of infinity beats. It’s literally called ‘Good Beats,’ and there’s just a lot of good beats in there. It’s a consistent process, but it’s about capturing the moment. This project is an honest depiction of the moment.” That’s why n*ggas say cooking, I guess. You got some shit going and then if you get distracted, the consistency of it changes, and your perspective on it changes. The moment is gone. And you’re about to serve some terrible food.”

While it’s all about this unspoken, yet instantly palpable, creative synergy, it’s also about the come-up. MIKE spent a lot of time on Wednesday night’s panel recounting his trajectory, grateful that he’s been able to achieve all of this while still standing alongside the people he started up with. The project features a stacked slate of 10k and SURF GANG affiliate artists on the assists, including Niontay, Anysia Kym, Jadasea, Na-Kel Smith and Lerado Khalil.

“I have this joke that when I’m 45, I’m gonna do a residency at Cafe Erzulie,” MIKE closed out the panel with. “That’s where we was at.”

We’ll be the first in line for presale with the pre-sale tickets drop. Until then, we’ll be running up POMPEII // UTILITY, out on all streaming services now.