The “Blood of the Fang” visual is inspired by a photo of Huey Newton — co-founder of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense — hand-cuffed to a hospital gurney while being treated for a gunshot wound in the abdomen after a gun battle with Oakland police in October 1967.
The song itself is built around a sample from Sam Waymon’s score to the 1973 experimental vampire film Ganja & Hess. Daveed Diggs’s lyrics conjure an alternate history of black political struggle in the 1960s and 70s, name-dropping radical activists and reimagining them as a pantheon of undead superheroes fighting against systems of oppression.
Clipping recently announced their first headlining shows in nearly 3 years: October 8th-November 16th (see dates below), the band will perform in support of their new album, There Existed an Addiction to Blood, out October 18th on CD, 2xLP, cassette, and a limited-edition, blood-splattered “Lamestain” vinyl 2xLP.
[2xLP Deluxe Limited “Lamestain” Edition]
The band, whose October 9th show at Brooklyn’s Zone One at Elsewhere is now sold-out, just added an in-store at Rough Trade NYC on October 8th. Fans who pre-order the new album via Rough Trade will receive two passes to the in-store, and those who show up day-of can purchase the album for a single pass to the in-store. (Day-of purchases/entry will be on a first-come, first-served basis.) The blood-splattered “Lamestain” vinyl edition is sold out online, and will only be available at the in-store, at select independent record stores, and via the band’s merch table at shows.
Oct. 08 - Brooklyn, NY - Rough Trade NYC [7 pm - All Ages] Oct. 09 - Brooklyn, NY - Zone One at Elsewhere [Sold Out] Oct. 10 - Washington, DC - U Street Music Hall Oct. 11 -Toronto, ON - The Garrison * Oct. 14 - Oakland, CA - The New Parish Nov. 16 - Los Angeles, CA - Adult Swim Festival *w/ Cartel Madras
Headlining shows for October 2019 in Brooklyn, DC, Toronto, and Oakland also announced.
Clipping has delivered a lyric video for “La Mala Ordina”, a new single featuring rappers Benny The Butcher (Griselda/Shady Records) and Elcamino (Black Soprano Family), and harsh noise artist The Rita. The lyric video was made by the band itself, with Cristina Bercovitz. The track is a standout from Clipping’s forthcoming album,There Existed an Addiction to Blood, available on Friday, October 18th worldwide from Sub Pop.
There Existed an Addiction to Blood finds Clipping interpreting another rap splinter sect through their singular lens. This is Clipping’s transmutation of horrorcore, a purposefully absurdist and creatively significant sub-genre that flourished in the mid-90s. If some of its most notable pioneers included Brotha Lynch Hung and Gravediggaz, it also encompasses seminal works from the Geto Boys, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and the near-entirety of classic Memphis cassette tape rap.
The most subversive and experimental rap has often presented itself as an “alternative” to conventional sounds, but Clipping respectfully warp them into new constellations. There Existed an Addiction to Blood absorbs the hyper-violent horror tropes of the Murder Dog era, but re-imagines them in a new light: still darkly-tinted and somber, but in a weirder and more vivid hue. If traditional horrorcore was akin to Blacula, the hugely popular blaxploitation flick from the early 70s, Clipping’s latest is analogous to Ganja & Hess, the blood-sipping 1973 cult classic regarded as an unsung landmark of black independent cinema, whose score by Sam Waymon, the band samples on “Blood of the Fang” and inspired the album’s title.
There Existed an Addiction to Blood features the singles “Nothing Is Safe,” “Blood of the Fang,” and the aforementioned “La Mala Ordina,” and was produced by Clipping, mixed by Steve Kaplan, and mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysium Masters in Los Angeles. The album also features appearances from Ed Balloon, La Chat, Counterfeit Madison, and Pedestrian Deposit.
[Photo credit: Cristina Bercorvitz]
Clipping Tour Dates + Ticket Links
Clipping has just announced their first headlining shows in nearly 3 years in support of There Existed an Addiction to Blood which span October 9th in Brooklyn at Zone One at Elsewhere and currently end October 14th in Oakland at The New Parish. Additionally, the band will perform on Saturday, November 16th at the 2019 Adult Swim Festival in Los Angeles.
Oct. 09 - Brooklyn, NY - Zone One at Elsewhere Oct. 10 - Washington, DC - U Street Music Hall Oct. 11 -Toronto, ON - The Garrison Oct. 14 - Oakland, CA - The New Parish Nov. 16 - Los Angeles, CA - Adult Swim Festival
Clipping has returned with There Existed an Addiction to Blood, the group’s fourth effort and the follow up to Splendor and Misery, their acclaimed album of 2016. There Existed an Addiction to Blood features the singles “Nothing Is Safe,” “Blood of the Fang,” “La Mala Ordina” (Feat. Benny The Butcher, ElCamino, The Rita), and was produced by Clipping, mixed by Steve Kaplan, and mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysium Masters in Los Angeles. The album also features appearances from Ed Balloon, La Chat, Counterfeit Madison, and Pedestrian Deposit. There Existed an Addiction to Blood will be available on 2xLP/Deluxe 2xLP/CD/CS/DL on Friday, October 18th, 2019 worldwide from Sub Pop.
There Existed an Addiction to Blood finds Clipping interpreting another rap splinter sect through their singular lens. This is Clipping’s transmutation of horrorcore, a purposefully absurdist and creatively significant sub-genre that flourished in the mid-90s. If some of its most notable pioneers included Brotha Lynch Hung and Gravediggaz, it also encompasses seminal works from the Geto Boys, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and the near-entirety of classic Memphis cassette tape rap.
The most subversive and experimental rap has often presented itself as an “alternative” to conventional sounds, but Clipping respectfully warp them into new constellations. There Existed an Addiction to Blood absorbs the hyper-violent horror tropes of the Murder Dog era, but re-imagines them in a new light: still darkly-tinted and somber, but in a weirder and more vivid hue. If traditional horrorcore was akin to Blacula, the hugely popular blaxploitation flick from the early 70s, Clipping’s latest is analogous to Ganja & Hess, the blood-sipping 1973 cult classic regarded as an unsung landmark of black independent cinema, whose score by Sam Waymon, the band samples on “Blood of the Fang” and inspired the album’s title.
[2xLP Deluxe Limited “Lamestain” Edition]
There Existed an Addiction to Blood is available through Sub Pop Mega Mart. Preorders of the LP through megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in North America will receive the limited, deluxe 2xLP “Lamestain” edition on blood-splattered clear vinyl (while supplies last). Meanwhile, LP preorders of There Existed an Addiction to Blood throughout the UK and Europe from select independent retailers will receive the limited Loser edition on opaque silver vinyl (while supplies last).
Clipping
There Existed an Addiction to Blood
Tracklisting: 1. Intro 2. Nothing Is Safe 3. He Dead (feat. Ed Balloon) 4. Haunting (Interlude) 5. La Mala Ordina (feat. The Rita, Benny The Butcher & El Camino) 6. Club Down (feat. Sarah Bernat) 7. Prophecy (Interlude) 8. Run for Your Life (feat. La Chat) 9. The Show 10. Possession (Interlude) 11. All in Your Head (feat.Counterfeit Madison & Robyn Hood) 12. Blood of the Fang 13. Story 7 14. Attunement (feat. Pedestrian Deposit) 15. Piano Burning (composed by Annea Lockwood)
Clipping will perform at the 2019 Adult Swim Festival in Los Angeles on Saturday, November 16th. Additional live performances to be announced soon.
About Clipping’s There Existed an Addiction to Blood: The science-fiction visionary Octavia Butler once declared that “there is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” The aphorism could apply to any art form where the basic contours are fixed, but the appetite for innovation remains infinite. Enter Clipping, flash fiction genre masters in a hip-hop world firmly rooted in memoir. If first-person confessionals historically reign, the mid-city Los Angeles trio of rapper Daveed Diggs and producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes have spent the last half-decade terraforming their own patch of soil, replete with conceptual labyrinths and industrial chaos. They have conjured a mutant emanation of the future, built at odd angles atop the hallowed foundation of the past.
Their third album for Sub Pop, There Existed an Addiction to Blood, finds them interpreting another rap splinter sect through their singular lens. This is clipping’s transmutation of horrorcore, a purposefully absurdist and creatively significant sub-genre that flourished in the mid-90s. If some of its most notable pioneers included Brotha Lynch Hung and Gravediggaz, it also encompasses seminal works from the Geto Boys, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Three 6 Mafia and the near-entirety of classic Memphis cassette tape rap.
The most subversive and experimental rap has often presented itself as an “alternative” to conventional sounds, but Clipping respectfully warp them into new constellations. There Existed an Addiction to Blood absorbs the hyper-violent horror tropes of the Murder Dog era, but re-imagines them in a new light: still darkly-tinted and somber, but in a weirder and more vivid hue. If traditional horrorcore was akin to Blacula, the hugely popular blaxploitation flick from the early 70s, Clipping’s latest is analogous to Ganja & Hess, the blood-sipping 1973 cult classic regarded as an unsung landmark of black independent cinema, whose score by Sam Waymon, the band samples on “Blood of the Fang” and inspired the album’s title.
From the opening “Intro,” Clipping summon an unsettling eeriness. Diggs sounds like he’s rapping through a drive-thru speaker about the bottom falling out, bodies hitting the floor, and recurrent ghosts. You hear ambient noises, footsteps and shovels. The hairs on your arms stick up like bayonets. You can practically see the knife’s edge, sharp and luminous.
Each song contains its own premise and conceptual bent. There is “Nothing is Safe,” a reversal of Assault on Precinct 13, where the band create their own version of a John Carpenter-inspired rap beat and the cops are the ones raiding a trap house. Diggs sketches the narrative from the perspective of the victims, full of lurid and visceral details and intricate wordplay. The windows are boarded and sealed, the product simmers on the stove, the bodies sleep fitfully in shifts. Then law enforcement arrives and the bullets start to fly.
“He Dead” turns police officers into werewolves while Diggs flips Kendrick Lamar’s “Riggamortis” into something gravely literal.“All In Your Head” finds Clipping re-contextualizing the pimp talk of Suga Free and Too $hort into a metaphor for an Exorcist-style possession. The album contains interludes featuring hissing recordings of demonic invasions and guest appearances from Griselda Gang’s Benny the Butcher and Hypnotize Minds horror queen La Chat. Other tracks feature contributions from noise music legends The Rita and Pedestrian Deposit. It all ends with “Piano Burning,” a performance of a piece written by the avant-garde composer Annea Lockwood. Yes, it is the sound of a piano burning.
In the hands of the less imaginative or less virtuosic, it could come off as overwrought or pretentious. Instead, Clipping annex new terrain for a sub-genre often left for dead. In its own way, one could compare what they’ve accomplished to Tarantino’s post-modern reworkings of critically overlooked but creatively fertile blaxploitation, horror and spaghetti western cinema.
Everything fits neatly into the broader scope of the band’s career, which has seen them expand from insular experimentalists into globally recognized artists. Since the release of their first album in 2013, Diggs has won a Tony and a Grammy, as well as co-written and starred in 2018’s critically hailed Blindspotting, while Snipes and Hutson have scored numerous films and television shows.
Clipping’s last album, the 2016 afro-futurist dystopian space opusSplendor & Misery was recently named one of Pitchfork’s Best Industrial Albums of All-Time. Commissioned for an episode of This American Life, their 2017 single “The Deep” became the inspiration for a novel of the same name, written by Rivers Solomon and published by Saga Press. But it’s their latest masterwork that embodies what the band had been building towards — a work that finds them without peer. This is experimental hip-hop built to bang in a post-apocalyptic club bursting with radiation. It’s horror-core that soaks up past blood and replants it into a different organism, undead but dangerously alive. It is a new sun, blindingly bright and built to burn your retinas.
Due to popular demand, the Deluxe Box Set will now be available December 14th, 2018.
You can now watch clipping.’s new lyric video for “Stab Him in the Throat” directed by Mortis Studio. The song is found on the Rick and Morty soundtrack, and is inspired by the show.
Due to overwhelming popularity, the release date for the Deluxe Box Set version of the Rick And Morty soundtrack has been moved to December 14th in order to meet demand. For those customers who have waited patiently for their pre-orders, we will be shipping orders on a first come, first served basis as soon as these sets become available.
The Deluxe Box Set includes the album on double-LP pressed on an exclusive “Portal” colored vinyl* along with a custom poster, a patch, a sticker, and a bonus 7” single (featuring an extended mix of the screaming sun from the 2nd season finale, pressed on clear vinyl). All of this comes housed in an attractive, borderline extravagant box featuring a plexiglass window cover which reveals a glowing design when lit by its integrated LED lights.
The Rick and Morty Soundtrack is currently available in the following formats:
A standard CD
A double LP pressed on colored vinyl featuring two single-pocket LP jackets housed together in a custom die-cut slipcase.
A full digital release of all of the material on the CD and double LP
A traditional cassette tape of Rick and Morty soundtrack will also be available this Friday, November 23rd, 2018.
About Rick and Morty
Rick and Morty follows a sociopathic genius scientist who drags his inherently timid grandson on insanely dangerous adventures across the universe. Rick Sanchez is living with his daughter Beth’s family and constantly bringing her, his son-in-law Jerry, granddaughter Summer, and grandson Morty into intergalactic escapades. Can the family survive Rick’s insanity and all the chaos the universe throws at them?
Rick and Morty stars Justin Roiland, Sarah Chalke, Chris Parnell and Spencer Grammer. The series is created by Dan Harmon and Roiland who also serve as executive producers.
Listen: “So We Did” [from “Buyer’s Remorse” Oct. 17] Spotify / Apple
Listen: “Brokenomics” [from “The Filibuster” Oct. 10] Spotify / Apple
Listen: “Right Here” [from “Pilot” Oct. 3rd] Spotify / Apple
New episode airs tonight at 9:30/8:30c on ABC, and new songs will be available every Friday preceding each new episode… through Apple Music and Spotify
Sub Pop is releasing music from The Mayor, the new hit TV show starring Brandon Micheal Hall, Lea Michele, and Yvette Nicole Brown, created Jeremy Bronson and executive produced by Daveed Diggs (of Sub Pop’s own, Clipping.).
The Mayor airs Tuesdays at 9:30pm | 8:30pm CT on ABC. Songs will be available every Friday, preceding each Tuesday night episode, throughout the season.
Songs from The Mayor soundtrack are performed by Brandon Micheal Hall (aka Courtney Rose) and members of the cast, and written by Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes (of the group Clipping).
About The Mayor:
Young rapper Courtney Rose needs his big break. For years, he’s toiled away in a small inner-city apartment, making music in his junk-filled bedroom closet. Tired of waiting for opportunity to knock, Courtney cooks up the publicity stunt of the century – running for mayor of his California hometown, Fort Grey, to generate buzz for his music career. But his master plan goes wildly awry, ending in the most terrifying of outcomes: an election victory.
The series stars Brandon Micheal Hall as Courtney Rose, Lea Michele as Valentina Barella, Bernard David Jones as Jermaine Leforge, Marcel Spears as T.K. Clifton and Yvette Nicole Brown as Dina Rose.
Executive producers of the series are Daveed Diggs, Jeremy Bronson, Jamie Tarses and James Griffiths. “The Mayor” is produced by ABC Studios.
RED ALERT: Time for you to watch the new Clipping video for “True Believer” from their Hugo Award-Nominated album (#kindofabigdeal), Splendor & Misery. “True Believer” was directed by longtime Clipping collaborator, Carlos Lopez-Estrada, and stars guest vocalist Paul Outlaw as an astronaut floating from planet earth into outer space.
As not-at-all subtly alluded to above, and in further exciting news, Clipping’s Splendor & Misery (watch the videos/listen here) has been shortlisted for the “Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)” category of the Hugo Awards (aka Science Fiction’s most prestigious award #NBD), which are given for specific works of science fiction or fantasy in the preceding calendar year. The awards ceremony will be held at Worldcom 75 in Helsinki, Finland on August 11th, 2017.
Later tonight (April 4th), Clipping will appear as support for the Flaming Lips in St. Petersburg, Florida at Jannus Live.
Splendor & Misery is available on CD/LP/DL/CASS worldwide from Sub Pop right over here and Deathbomb Arc here. The album features 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 Wriggle EP is also available from Sub Pop, here.
