clipping. — “DEAD CHANNEL SKY”

(This is our friend Professor D. Grover the XIIIth‘s review of the latest album by the clipping. trio from L.A. and their guests, which has been out on the Sub Pop label since March 14th. And it’s actually the second mention of them in our pages; the first time, almost six years ago, was here.)

Greetings and salutations, friends. There’s a very good chance that you’re not familiar with the noise hip-hop trio clipping., or if you are you may be wondering why they’re being discussed here on No Clean Singing. The answer to that question is because Islander said I could review their new album, mostly, but also because their music is uncompromising and esoteric and has plenty to offer to metal fans who are a little more open-minded.

The trio, comprised of multi-hyphenate rapper-actor-Broadway star Daveed Diggs (best known for filling the roles of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette in the original stage production of Hamilton and the Snowpiercer TV series) and producers William Hutson (Rale) and Jonathan Snipes (Captain Ahab), recently released their fifth full-length album Dead Channel Sky, the album I am here to discuss.

It’s important to understand the group’s history to get the proper perspective on Dead Channel Sky. Their prior full-length releases tended to have a unifying theme; CLPPNG dealt with street life, Splendor & Misery is a science-fiction concept album with a full story, and the diptych of There Existed An Addiction To Blood and Visions Of Bodies Being Burned are both horror-themed. Dead Channel Sky, for those familiar with William Gibson’s Neuromancer (from which the album drives its name), is something of a cyberpunk-themed album, although with a different approach than a standard concept album. While it does feature a cohesive theme, more or less, it’s written to be a sort of mixtape or soundtrack, like a compilation CD of songs by different artists that might be found in a burned-out record store in a cyberpunk setting.

The trio are no strangers to unconventional songwriting and musique concrète, from the alarm clock that forms the backbone of CLPPNG’s ‘Get Up’ to the ambient starship engine sounds that underlie much of Splendor & Misery to the street sounds and passing cars on ‘Run For Your Life’ from There Existed An Addiction To Blood. Dead Channel Sky is actually a departure in a lot of ways due to the electronic beats that feature on a lot of tracks, like the furious Prodigy-esque breakbeats on ‘Change The Channel’, the Dutch rave-sampling ‘Dominator’ (which borrows its titular sample from the Human Resource track of the same name), or the French house inspired ‘Mirrorshades pt 2’, which is the most accessible and un-clipping. the band has ever sounded. The result is an album that doesn’t really sound like anything clipping. has done so far.

Still, for all its musical differences from their previous work, this is still very much a clipping. record. Even with its heavy techno roots, the album only has two actual samples (the aforementioned Human Resource clip and several samples from the 1996 documentary The Last Angels Of History that are scattered throughout ‘Code’), with the rest of the album’s beats having been created by Hutson and Snipes, and as such there are sounds that pop up that are reminiscent of their previous work. The group’s penchant for creating music out of non-musical sounds hasn’t gone away, as the first track ‘Intro’ features Diggs rapping over the manipulated sounds of a dialup modem (and if you’re old enough to remember the sounds of a dialup modem then I would like to formally remind you to take your ibuprofen so your back doesn’t hurt too much).

As a means of furthering the alternate universe mixtape concept of the album, Dead Channel Sky features a number of guest artists. Wilco guitarist Nels Cline provides improvisational guitar on the interlude track ‘Malleus’, actress/rapper Tia Nomore has a guest verse on ‘Scams’, and Sub-Pop labelmates Cartel Madras contribute to ‘Mirrorshades pt 2’. Most significantly for me, however, is the presence of my favorite rapper/lyricist Aesop Rock, whose guest verse on the video-game-themed ‘Welcome Home Warrior’ marks a meeting of two of my favorite hip-hop artists ever. It’s the kind of collaboration that I’d give up a testicle to get more of.

And then there’s Diggs, one of my favorite rappers and lyricists of all time. His delivery is as smooth and versatile as ever, delivering blisteringly fast bars (‘Change The Channel’, ‘Dodger’) and laid-back club lines (‘Mirrorshades pt 2’) with ease. His ability to tell a full, complex story with his lyrics isn’t utilized as much as it has been on previous albums, but ‘Polaroids’ is a perfect example of how he does this, reminding me of ‘Body For The Pile’ from Visions Of Bodies Being Burned or the interlinked ‘Story’ tracks that populate most of clipping.’s previous releases.

Speaking of the ‘Story’ tracks, Dead Channel Sky doesn’t have one, which is something of a surprise, but there is an as of yet untitled hidden track in the album’s pregap that directly addresses each of the previous ‘Story’ tracks and seems to tie them together. There are also several overt references to the storyline from Splendor & Misery, further expanding on the lore of the clipping. universe. It’s not the kind of thing you have to be aware of to enjoy the group’s music, but I’m not going to lie, I love that kind of shit.

Much as Splendor & Misery is littered with science fiction references, Dead Channel Sky has many references to classic cyberpunk fiction. As I mentioned before, the album title itself is drawn from the first line of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, and there are a large number of references to multiple Gibson works. But there are also a lot of other references to novels by John Brunner, Philip K. Dick, and Lloyd Blankenship, as well as the Cyberpunk game universe and the Matrix films. There’s a strong understanding of the roots of the subject matter that goes hand in hand with the music and creates an immersive experience, enhanced by the likelihood that there is more yet to be uncovered. From the album description on Bandcamp: “Binary stars are often perceived as one object when viewed with the naked eye. Like those twin sun systems, it’ll take some special equipment and some discerning attention to pull the stars apart on this record.” There are further hints (as well as past history on Splendor & Misery) that there is some steganography at work, with secrets yet to be discovered.

Still, judging the album based solely on its evident merits, it’s easy to declare that Dead Channel Sky is one of the year’s best albums thus far. It wears its influences on its sleeve, but the way that it twists those influences into new shapes, tempered with clipping.’s distinctive style, is what makes it special. There are a number of albums upcoming this year that I’m looking forward to, but at this point Dead Channel Sky is a definite highlight.

https://clppng.bandcamp.com/album/dead-channel-sky
https://www.clppng.com/
https://www.facebook.com/clppng/
https://www.instagram.com/clppng/