Innovations in hip-hop have a long history of tending toward abrasive sounds, from the call-to-arms sirens of Bomb Squad's production on early
Public Enemy albums to the pseudo-industrial squall of
Kanye West's controversially caustic
Yeezus album. L.A. trio
clipping takes this fondness for harsh sounds to the next level with
CLPPNG, a strange hybrid of noise frequencies, brutally dark beats, and MC
Daveed Diggs' unhinged, often ugly lyrical flow. The group began as a recording project between producers
Jonathan Snipes and
William Hutson, reworking commercial hip-hop songs by laying a cappella vocal tracks over new beats of their own creation made up of punishing power electronics and other gruesome noise tones -- an unexpected juxtaposition, and one that runs through a wide range of lawless sounds on the 14 sinister tracks that make up
CLPPNG. A minute-long introduction track sounds like little more than
Diggs rapping over a beatless din of
Merzbow-like feedback, which runs immediately into the horror-rap lyrics and distorted bass monotony of "Body & Blood." Ex-
Three 6 Mafia member
Gangsta Boo shows up for a cameo verse on "Tonight," a minimal, electro-tinged beat serving as a backdrop for
Diggs' portrait of last-call desperation. ~ Fred Thomas