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 2016 Tony 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

Ticket links don’t sleep here.

HI! 

Late last night, Clipping dropped their official video for “Wriggle,” the title cut from their just-released EP. (Which is out now and available for your purchasing pleasure here.) Hear the full EP here; see more of Clipping’s eye-assaulting visuals here. 

The cup of Clipping runneth over in these past few days, and just last night the Los Angeles rap group - featuring Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes - announced their triumphant return to your ears with the new Wriggle EP, which is available digitally right here, right now. 

Wriggle highlights include the title track, “Back Up” (feat. Antwon and Signor Benedick the Moor), “Shooter,” “Hot Fuck No Love” (feat. Cakes Da Killa and Maxi Wild), and “Our Time” (feat. Nailah Middleton).  The EP was produced by Clipping, and is the group’s first release of new material since 2014’s CLPPNG, their acclaimed (and not at all coincidentally on-sale) second album and Sub Pop debut.  

F your I - Wriggle precedes a new Clipping full-length, coming this fall on Sub Pop/Deathbomb Arc.

[Pictured: Daveed Diggs with an actual fake Tony Award]

And just two nights ago, Clipping’s Daveed Diggs won an actual not-fake Tony Award for “Best Featured Actor in a Musical” for Hamilton. While promoting the musical (in which he plays the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson) he stopped by the Tonight Show for an interview. During the segment, the Roots play “Work Work” as his walk-on music, and he’s asked to prove that he is the fastest rapper on Broadway. Which he does. Watch his acapella performance (and Jimmy Fallon’s subsequent geek out) of “Taking Off” from their album CLPPNG via this link right here.

[Photo Credit: Sarah Sitkin]