It starts with a blitz of feedback, incorporates uncompromising Nine Inch Nails-style beat explosions and, for an almost unlistenable three minutes, turns a ringing alarm clock into a hip-hop beat. Welcome to Clipping, the art-minded, LA-based rap project of MC Daveed Diggs and producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson. Comprised of real-life samples like drills, waves and rocks, CLPPNG is about as street-level as a hip-hop album can get, and their debut album contains plenty of post-Yeezus noise thrills. Try Body and Blood, which sounds like it was recorded in a nuclear bomb factory, or Taking Off, a Portishead-style blast of minimalist bass, marching drums and prog-jazz. But CLPPNG isn't all about confrontational face melters: Summertime is a cruisy, old-school scratch-jam, and Tonight's shimmering low-key electronics are cleverly off-kilter. Despite the occasionally cheesy one-liner, Diggs is a clever, pacy rapper at his best when paired with a like-minded female MC, like on Work Work, which pairs trunk-rattling bass blasts with newcomer Cocc Pistol Cree. As Get Up's annoying alarm ring shows, Clipping can take things too far. But their self-confessed mission is to "make party music for the club you wish you hadn't gone to", and you'd have to say these noisemaking brats have succeeded.
Verdict: Rap attack not for the faint of heart
- TimeOut
