Ears Wide Open: Clipping

Andrew Veeder on February 4th, 2014

0

The Los Angeles crew Clipping claim to “make party music for the club you wish you hadn’t gone to, the car you don’t remember getting in, and the streets you don’t feel safe on” – an incredibly apt description for the avant-garde noise-rap that the trio of Daveed Diggs, William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes have crafted for their debut album, “Midcity.” The opening track, “Intro,” begins with the words, “It’s Clipping, b*tch,” and then gives way to an abrasive cascade of sound, like flipping channels between a sandblaster, jet engine and nails scratching a backboard, before cutting out completely for Diggs’ rapid-fire a cappella flow. The song oscillates between mile-a-minute raps and pure percussion-less industrial noise, a sonic assault that sounds like bomb blasts being grinded in a metallic shredder, the sort of ear-splitting destructive commotion at the kind of frequencies that make cats freak out and go crazy. And it all sounds so interesting. The next song, “Loud,” simmers with a similar ticker-tape of distortion until the heavily fuzzed-out beats come in booming as Diggs menacingly raps about getting “so turnt up you can’t turn me down.” “Get.it” hums with a synth that eerily echoes the hook from Ace of Base’s “All That She Wants” in another dimension, but bolstered by crunchy percussion, glass shattering, and a thunderous low-end, while Diggs trades verses with Kill Rogers and TiVo. The rest of the album is full of smooth and witty wordplay mixed with calculated and jarring production that gives Death Grips a run for arty noise-rap crown. It is by no means an easy listen, but it’s an incredibly unique one.

||| Stream: “Intro,” “Loud,” and “Get.it” featuring Kill Rogers and TiVo.