Last night, Clipping dropped these dizzying visuals for new track “Baby Don’t Sleep” and details of their new full-length Splendor & Misery, a Sci-Fi/dystopian concept album due out September 9th on Sub Pop/Deathbomb Arc.
Clipping are producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson, along with rapper/lyricist Daveed Diggs. [Yes THAT Daveed Diggs: Originator of the roles of the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in acclaimed Broadway musical Hamilton AND winner of the 2016Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical.]
“Baby Don’t Sleep” is Clipping’s collaboration with multi-disciplinary artist Cristopher Cichocki. The new video is an electrified vortex of visual art that jolts into the core of the group’s commanding noise-rap and musique concrete aesthetics. Captured within the industrial bellies of New York and Los Angeles, this meticulously detailed work is comprised from Cichocki’s visual experiments with interference static, oscilloscopic wavelengths, and flicker-frame animation.
Splendor & Misery is an Afrofuturist, dystopian concept album that follows the sole survivor of a slave uprising on an interstellar cargo ship, and the onboard computer that falls in love with him. Thinking he is alone and lost in space, the character discovers music in the ship’s shuddering hull and chirping instrument panels. William and Jonathan’s tracks draw an imaginary sonic map of the ship’s decks, hallways, and quarters, while Daveed’s lyrics ride the rhythms produced by its engines and machinery. In a reversal of H.P. Lovecraft’s concept of cosmic insignificance, the character finds relief in learning that humanity is of no consequence to the vast, uncaring universe. It turns out, pulling the rug out from under anthropocentrism is only horrifying to those who thought they were the center of everything to begin with. Ultimately, The character decides to pilot his ship into the unknown—and possibly into oblivion—instead of continuing on to worlds whose systems of governance and economy have violently oppressed him.
The album is led by the highlights “Baby Don’t Sleep,” “A Better Place,” and “Air ‘Em Out,” was produced by the band, and mixed by Steve Kaplan in Los Angeles. The announcement of said album comes hot on the heels of the group’s just released Wriggle EP [see the GIFtastic title track video right over here].
Splendor & Misery will be available worldwide on CD/LP/DL/CASS, and is now up for preorder from Sub Pop and Deathbomb Arc. Preorders through Sub Pop Mega Mart and independent retailers near you will receive the Loser edition on crystal clear vinyl (while supplies last).
Clipping’s current tour schedule in support of Wriggle and Splendor & Misery includes: August 4th in Seattle at Neumos (with Cakes Da Killa and Porter Ray); August 19th in Los Angeles for the Perpetual Dawn Anniversary; A hometown release show on September 8th in Los Angeles at Highways Performance Space* (with Busdriver and Pedestrian Deposit); And September 11th at the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival.
*The September 8th show is presented by Highways Performance Space, Artistic Directors, Leo Garcia & Patrick Kennelly.
Additional tour dates will be announced soon. For now, please find a current list of dates below.
Tour Dates Aug. 04 - Seattle, WA - Neumos* Aug. 19 - Los Angeles, CA - Perpetual Dawn Anniversary Show (venue TBA) Sep. 08 - Los Angeles, CA - Highways Performance Space** Sep. 11 - San Francisco, CA - San Francisco Electronic Music Festival * w/ Cakes Da Killa & Porter Ray ** w/ Busdriver, Pedestrian Deposit
Beach House has just released “The
Traveller,” their first official video from their latest album Thank Your
Lucky Stars. The new visual was directed by Jennifer Juniper Stratford,
media artist and founder of Telefantasy Studios, an analog media lab dedicated
to the creation of avant-garde television and experiments in video. The video
was shot using an obsolete television camera and processed with a video synthesizer and a reconfigured
broadcast mixer to create a realm outside of this dimension.
Beach House’s previously
announced tour in support of Thank Your Lucky Stars and Depression
Cherry (the band’s OTHER 2015 full-length album release…) resumes August 5th in San Francisco at Outside Lands and runs
through November 4th-6th in Austin at Sound on Sound Festival. Highlights for
the tour include: Pickathon in Happy Valley, OR on August 7th; a club and
theatre tour August 8th-26th; FYF in Los Angeles on August 28th; Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh, NC on September 9th. There’s a full list of tour dates here.
Thank Your Lucky Stars (released October 16th, 2015) entered at #38 on the Billboard Top 200 chart and peaked at #5 on the CMJ Top 200 chart.
Depression Cherry (released Aug. 28, 2015), the second consecutive top 10 album for Beach House, coming in at #8 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, spent 5 weeks at #1 on the CMJ Top 200.
Beach House’s Thank Your Lucky Stars and Depression Cherry were recorded during the same two-month span, and were produced by the band and Chris Coady at Studio in the Country in Bogalusa, Louisiana.
Both original full-length
albums areavailable now in North America from Sub Pop, in Europe from
Bella Union and in Australia from Mistletone.
Mass Gothic will release their Sup Goth digital EP on August 5th worldwide through Sub Pop Records (that’s US!). The 5-song effort was recorded in New York this past spring, shortly after the release of Mass Gothic. Where the group’s self-titled debut chronicled the depths of depression, Sup Goth is the resulting catharsis. The EP is also a collaborative affair between Noel Heroux and partner / bandmate Jessica Zambri, as it is the first Mass Gothic recording the pair have completed together.
Says Heroux, “I followed my previously usually-ignored instinct to allow the noise and color in my head to inform a specific, intentional sound as opposed to ‘throwing it all at the wall’ as I’ve done a thousand times before. It’s lyrically loose and conversational, informed by sonic landscape and stream of conscience. Jess approached her vocals similarly, although we hadn’t talked about it prior. We ended up with all these semi-hidden communications between us in the songs.”
Brooklyn Magazine says of “A Run“: “It’s expansive and positive and shimmering and anthemic, coming from a brave place populated by two people for whom love really does conquer all (see feature July 25th).”
Mass Gothic have also scheduled a short east coast tour in support of the EP and it’s self-titled debut, with label mate Kyle Craft. The trek begins August 9th in Montreal at La Vitrola and ends August 13th in Philadelphia at Boot & Saddle. There will be additional live dates announce soon, but for now… see below.
[Photo Credit: Shawn Brackbill]
ICYMI, watch Mass Gothic’s recently released, stark visual for the song “Nice Night,” from their self-titled debut, directed by returning Mass Gothic visuals director Addison Post (“Every Night You’ve Got To Save Me”).
Tour Dates Aug. 09 - Montreal, QC - La Vitrola* Aug. 10 - Allston, MA - Great Scott* Aug. 11 - New York, NY - Mercury Lounge* Aug. 12 - Washington, DC - DC9* Aug. 13 - Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle* * w/ Kyle Craft
Southern gentlemen Arbor Labor Union share the stage with notorious knuckleheads The Gotobeds for the rest of this week (July 19-23), as they shred their way through the sultry South. What could go wrong?
Shows begin tonight, July 19th at Cats Cradle in Carrboro, NC and wrap Saturday, July 23rd in Nashville, TN at Foobar.
The Gotobeds fans can also catch them in the daylight hours; they’ve got TWO live in-store performances coming up 7/23 at Grimey’s in Nashville and 7/24 at Shake It Records in Cincinnati. And in that meantime, Arbor Labor Union continue on the road supporting the one and only Dinosaur Jr.!
