The 20-city international tour, which will include stops in the U.K., The Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, the U.S., and Canada, begins April 16th in London and currently ends May 22nd in Chicago at Bottom Lounge. Festival highlights include an appearance at Ableton Loop 2020 in Berlin, DE April 24th-26th, Motel Mazique Festival in Rotterdam, NL on April 18th, and Donaufestival in Krems, DE on May 2nd. Additionally, support for the North American tour dates (May 7th-22nd) will come from Sub Pop labelmates Cartel Madras.
A special fan presale for the North American shows begin Wednesday, March 11th at 10 am (local), with tickets on sale to the general public Friday, March 13th at 10 am (local). The U.K./European shows are on sale now. For up to date information on tickets, please visit Clipping’s official website.
Apr. 16 - London, UK - Islington Assembly Hall Apr. 17 - Brighton, UK - The Arch Apr. 18 - Rotterdam, NL - Motel Mazique Festival Apr. 20 - Lille, FR - L’Aeronoef Apr. 21 - Paris, FR - Badaboum Apr. 22 - Brussels, BE - Beursshouwburg Apr. 24 - Berlin, DE - Ableton Loop 2020 Apr. 25 - Berlin, DE - Ableton Loop 2020 Apr. 26 - Berlin, DE - Ableton Loop 2020 Apr. 28 - Hamburg, DE - Hafenklang Apr. 29 - Wiesbaden, DE - Schlachtnof May 01 - Munich, DE - Rote Sonne May 02 - Krems, DE - Donaufestival May 07 - Los Angeles, CA - The Echoplex * May 08 - Berkeley, CA - Cornerstone * May 10 - Portland, OR - Star Theatre * May 11 - Seattle, WA - Neumos * May 15 - Montreal, QC - Bar Le Ritz * May 16 - Toronto, ON - Adelaide Hall * May 17 - Philadelphia, PA - Underground Arts * May 19 - Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg * May 20 - Boston, MA - Brighton Music Hall * May 22 - Chicago, IL - Bottom Lounge *
* w/ Cartel Madras
Clipping’s There Existed an Addiction to Blood earned placement on “Best Albums of 2019” lists from the likes of The Wire, The Needledrop, Passion of the Weiss, PopMatters (albums + best hip-hop), Treble Zine, The Line of Best Fit, Loud & Quiet, Genius, RIFF Magazine, Sputnikmusic, and more. Pop Matters says of the record, “Apocalyptic, claustrophobic, with danger in the air (“Nothing Is Safe”); in other words, reminiscent of our current moment in US history. Horror movie themes float amidst the background, but this is hip-hop, riddled with allusions to classics of the past while living in a now setting of vampires, zombies, and ghosts. (#7, “The 20 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2019”). Meanwhile, Treble Zine offers this, “There Existed an Addiction to Blood turns to horror as its conduit for dealing out home truths. Daveed Diggs remains in the highest tier of contemporary MCs in America, taking obvious joy from spinning between frisky, tongue-in-cheek junk culture references and cold, compact sucker punches of truth (#18 / “50 Best Albums of the Year”).”
There Existed an Addiction to Blood, which features the singles “Nothing Is Safe,”“La Mala Ordina,”“All in Your Head,” and “Blood of the Fang,” 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, Benny the Butcher, Elcamino, La Chat, The Rita, and Pedestrian Deposit, and a composition from Andrea Lockwood.
On Record Store Day (April 18th), Clipping will also release Double Live, a collaboration with composer Christopher Fleeger, available in a stunning industrial double-picture-disc package. This is not a standard live album. All the audio was recorded during Clipping’s 2017 tour, but the microphones weren’t pointed at the band. Instead they were in toilets, taped to ceiling pipes, tied to trees, worn by roadies—hidden all over venues. The results were then synchronized and edited over more than a year. Double Live is an impossible performance heard by hundreds of disembodied ears—part live album, part tour document, part musique concrète piece.
You can now hear Clipping’s “Aquacode Databreaks” (feat. Shabazz Palaces), a new track from the group’s forthcoming single “The Deep,” available on DL/12” vinyl worldwide on Friday, November 29th through Sub Pop. Listen via YouTube - Spotify - Apple Music - Bandcamp
Both the vinyl and digital versions include two unreleased extra tracks (the aforementioned “Aquacode Databreaks,” and “Drownt”), while the vinyl edition also includes instrumental versions of all three tracks.
Clipping’s “The Deep” is a dark sci-fi tale about the underwater-dwelling descendants of African women thrown off slave ships and based on the mythology of Detroit electronic group Drexciya.
The song was originally commissioned for a This American Life episode about Afrofuturism in 2017. “The Deep” also earned Clipping a nomination for a 2018 Hugo award, and the band constructed a sound installation based on “The Deep” at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
The 12” single comes on the heels of the November 5th release of The Deep, a novella by the two-time Astounding (formerly John W. Campbell) Award-nominated author Rivers Solomon (with Clipping credited as co-authors) inspired by the title track and published by Saga Press.
Clipping “The Deep” 12” single
Tracklisting: 1. The Deep 2. Aquacode Databreaks (feat. Shabazz Palaces) 3. Drownt 4. The Deep (Instrumental)* 5. Aquacode Databreaks (Instrumental)* 6. Drownt (Instrumental)* *vinyl-only
In further exciting news, Clipping also graces the cover of the forthcoming December issue of The Wire.
Clipping’s There Existed an Addiction to Blood, the group’s acclaimed new album, is out now on CD, 2xLP, cassette, and a 2xLP Deluxe Limited “Lamestain” Edition from Sub Pop. The blood-splattered “Lamestain” edition is sold out online, and will only be available at select independent record stores, and via the band’s merch table at shows (while supplies last). Clipping will perform at the Adult Swim Festival on November 16th in Los Angeles. Additional live dates to be announced soon.
Clipping has delivered an intense and hallucinatory new video for “All In Your Head,” directed by C Prinz (Tinashe, Miya Folick), a standout from There Existed an Addiction to Blood, the group’s acclaimed new album. The visual stars rapper Robyn Hood and Counterfeit Madison singer Sharon Udoh (who both guest on the track), along with dancer Jazz Washington and model/DJ Jantae Spinks.
C Prinz offers this, “‘All In Your Head’ is a surrealist portrait of the female experience embodied. I was deeply inspired by a line from an Amiri Baraka poem: ‘Lately, I’ve been accustomed to the way the ground opens up and envelopes me.’ I wanted to create something that felt authentic to the emotional landscape of the female-identifying. With this video, my goal was to get people to feel the imagery instead of just see it. This video is a pure representation of trust and community—it would not have been possible without the unconditional commitment of the cast, crew and the creative freedom Clipping and Sub Pop encouraged.”
Clipping add, “‘All In Your Head’ is the furthest we’ve taken the fracturing of single-point perspective in our storytelling. It was important to us to give over control and authorship of this particular video to our collaborators. We don’t appear in it and had virtually no input in its creation. And because we cannot take credit for any of it, we have no problem saying that C Prinz and her team have made a fucking masterpiece.”
Clipping will perform at the Adult Swim Festival on November 16th in Los Angeles. Additional live dates to be announced soon.
There Existed an Addiction to Blood is out now on CD, 2xLP, cassette, and a 2xLP Deluxe Limited “Lamestain” Edition from Sub Pop. The blood-splattered “Lamestain” edition is sold out online, and will only be available at select independent record stores, and via the band’s merch table at shows (while supplies last).
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.
