Clipping – “Aquacode Databreaks” (Feat. Shabazz Palaces)

Cristina Bercovitz

Clipping – “Aquacode Databreaks” (Feat. Shabazz Palaces)

Cristina Bercovitz

The Los Angeles-based trio Clipping and the Seattle duo Shabazz Palaces both make disorienting art-rap music for Sub Pop Records. But the two groups have radically different aesthetics and approaches. They’re not exactly the likeliest collaborators. Today, though, the two groups have joined forces on a new track called “Aquacode Databreaks.”

A couple of weeks ago, Clipping released There Existed An Addiction To Blood, a feverish album inspired by horror cinema, horrorcore rap, and the general horror of America in 2019. And later this month, Clipping will follow that LP up with a 12″ single version of “The Deep,” a song that they released two years ago. “The Deep” was commissioned by the NPR show This American Life, and it was based on the Atlantean Afro-futurist mythology of Drexciya, the ’90s Detroit electro cult heroes. The 12″ features two new tracks, “Aquacode Databreaks” and “Drownt,” that seem to build on that idea.

“Aquacode Databreaks” is built on a beat that sounds like a funkily malfunctioning R2D2. It’s all about living underwater. (The whole Drexciya idea is about the concept that African women, thrown off of slave ships, didn’t drown but instead built a utopian society under the sea.) It features an all-timeer of a boast from Shabazz Palaces’ Palaceer Lazaro: “I pull up on my seahorse, blinged out with diamonds / Bumping ghetto whale songs, heard from miles out.” Listen below.

The 12″ version of “The Deep” is out 11/29 on Sub Pop. The label name “Sub Pop” feels even more appropriate than usual for this endeavor.

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