Technological controlled chaos
Clipping’s latest album, Dead Channel Sky, is a sonic hallucination—an album that translates digital decay and industrial wreckage into sound. The trio—rapper Daveed Diggs and producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes—continue to deconstruct hip-hop’s boundaries, layering aggressive lyricism over dense, unpredictable production.
The album opens with “Intro,” an unsettling prelude built on a garbled, malfunctioning signal that mutates into something sentient. A shrill, computer-like error tone swells and loops, forming an eerie backdrop as Diggs’s voice flickers between presence and distortion, becoming part of the digital corruption itself.
“Dominator” abruptly shifts into an electrified house beat, its foundation built on shimmering marimba-like synths that flicker and warp with each pulse. A deep, stuttering bass anchors the track as backing vocals chant, “I’m the one and only,” blending into the track’s glitch-riddled undercurrent. The production constantly shifts—percussion dissolving into static, robotic-esque screeches punctuating Diggs’s relentless flow, and textures overlapping like corrupted data packets. The song escalates into a wall of sound, layering traditional drum elements with erratic hi-hats, handclaps, and relentless electronic drum pad hits, creating a rhythm that feels both mechanical and humanly primal.
“Change the Channel” hurtles forward with frenetic energy, its percussive backbone reminiscent of the hyperactive jingles of early-2000s teen television. The track’s rapid-fire synths evoke the velocity of a racing game soundtrack, oscillating between distorted swells and clean, glassy piano-like stabs that punctuate the chaos. Diggs’s rapping moves at an almost inhuman speed, his delivery slicing through the beat like a well-sharpened knife. The track’s electronic elements flicker erratically, amplifying the sense of movement and unpredictability.
“Run It” opens with an unsettling drone, like a corrupted radio signal attempting to stabilize. Diggs’s voice emerges through the static, his syllables floating unaccompanied before the beat snaps into place. A head-nodding drum pad rhythm locks in, layered with textured breathing noises that are quick, giving the track an eerie, organic quality. Industrial foghorn-like blasts loom over the groove, each tone carrying a sense of metallic weight, while erratic electronic pulses bubble beneath the surface, reminiscent of malfunctioning circuitry. The interplay between distortion and clarity turns the track into a tug-of-war between control and chaos.
“Go” begins with an unsettling high-pitched tone, something between a dog whistle and feedback from a failing speaker, before crashing into an electrified beat. The rhythm is jagged, built from erratic synth hits and fractured drum patterns that feel constantly on the verge of collapse. Electronic elements swell in and out of the mix like ghostly apparitions, making the entire composition feel unstable and unpredictable.
“Simple Degradation (Plucks 1-13)” is a brief but haunting instrumental interlude, evoking the flickering hum of a dying fluorescent light trying to turn on. The track is punctuated by sharp, percussive scratches, like metal scraping against metal—Freddy Krueger-like knives along piping, layered over a backdrop of shifting electronic textures that pulse unpredictably. The entire composition feels like a manifestation of static interference, a moment of pure abstraction in an already very abstract album.
“Code” returns to the album’s aggressive electronic foundations, its bass-heavy drum kit pounding out a militant rhythm. Clapping percussion punctuates each phrase, while elongated, synth-driven drones stretch across the track, creating a sense of tension. A distorted voice sample references imaginings of the future, interspersed with the distant sounds of birdsong—an eerie but understood juxtaposition. Diggs’s vocals ride the beat with mechanical precision, his inflections bending to the song’s undulating pulse.
“Dodger” injects a sense of urgency, its tempo accelerated by a relentless interplay between traditional drums and distorted electronic elements. The track’s production is intentionally unstable, shifting between rigid structure and moments of sonic collapse where droning, oscillating tones disrupt the rhythm before dissolving back into the beat’s kinetic momentum.
“Malleus” expands on these textures, opening with a distant listening of the former beat, with an out-of-tune guitar that feels like an instrument being forcefully returned mid-performance. This dissonant motif lingers in the background as the beat unfolds, layered with distant, metallic chimes that resemble a broken telephone dial tone. The song’s instrumentation warps the familiar into the uncanny, twisting organic elements into something unnervingly synthetic.
“Scams” leans into hip-hop’s rhythmic roots, with Diggs adopting a more spoken delivery over a glitch-ridden, bass-heavy beat. The first vocal feature on the album comes from Tia Nomore, whose rapid, tightly controlled cadence seamlessly integrates with the album’s mechanical intensity. The track’s production remains unpredictable—sounds flicker in and out, drum patterns dissolve and reform, and distortion clings to the edges of every phrase like digital decay.
“Keep Pushing” presents the most “traditional” hip-hop structure on the album, opening with a percussive electronic rhythm that sways between warm drum pads. A melodic piano line emerges, providing a moment of clarity before the production shifts again. Diggs transitions from rapping to singing each time, his voice enveloped in a swelling chorus backed by violins and maracas. The track’s evolving instrumentation feels almost cinematic, each transition carrying a weight the listener can feel like electricity moving up their spine.
“Mood Organ” deconstructs its own beat, shifting between chaotic industrial electronics and a sudden detour into a progressive rock-inspired section. Guitars churn against explosive percussion before fading into a sea of static and warped synths, the track’s form constantly morphing as if refusing to settle into one identity.
“Polaroids” is a spoken-word observation, framed by a disorienting, squeaking backdrop that resembles a squeaking reel of film warping in real time. The poetic structure of Diggs’s delivery mirrors the shifting production, moments of alliteration and rhythmic changes creating a sense of narrative dissonance.
“Mirrorshades Pt. 2” opens with a house groove that layers samples into an ethereal build before breaking into a propulsive beat. The bass punches through, carrying the track into its vocal feature from Cartel Madras, whose voice weaves into the production like another instrumental texture.
The album closes with “Ask What Happened,” beginning with spectral bell chimes that echo into an atmospheric void. Diggs’s voice emerges in a rapid, echoing pattern, growing sharper and more defined as the beat builds. The references to contraband, Iran, and the CIA hint at a deeper sociopolitical commentary, punctuated by the phrase “trickle-down Monopoly money.” The production swells once more, electronic drums accelerating to match Diggs’s unrelenting flow, before the track expands into a vast, ambient soundscape of ethereal keys and shimmering synths, a final transmission from a world collapsing under its own digital weight.
Dead Channel Sky is a fully realized dystopian vision, where hip-hop and industrial electronic music converge in an intricate, relentless soundscape. Clipping once again proves that they are architects of sound design in an uncertain future.
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