That’s precisely what Clipping. aim to do on their second studio record, ‘Splendor & Misery’, a hugely ambitious concept album. It’s been a busy few months for the trio, with the release of their ‘Wriggle’ EP sandwiched by Daveed Diggs picking up a Grammy and Tony for his work on the Broadway smash Hamilton, but their desire to look beyond hip hop’s established horizons hasn’t been weathered by scheduling or an uptick in media scrutiny.
Few records seek to create a relationship between narrative and the music itself as ‘Splendor & Misery’ does. Diggs’ technically dazzling flows sketch a dystopian account of the lone survivor of a slave uprising on a spaceship and the computer that falls in love with him. It seeks to range beyond that (albeit unusual) relationship dynamic and into a realm where the idea of self is swallowed by the vastness of the universe.
Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson, meanwhile, eschew anything approaching accepted rap instrumentals as they create sonic blueprints from the ship’s assorted beeps, whirrs and crunches.
The songs here are percussive without ever coalescing into regulation beats, while Diggs navigates surfaces that are clinical at times and mercilessly sharp at others.
Still, Clipping. are slowly enveloped by the pincer action threatening any concept record: the focus on technical ability and storytelling drive at the expense of the songs themselves. Every prog band believes they have the nous to navigate these threats, but most end up on the losing side all the same. To balance the three is a fiendishly difficult task and one that Clipping. only manage to execute fleetingly.
All Black is the record’s grand scene-setter, with Diggs outlining the protagonist’s isolation and mental state amid initial observations from the ship’s computer, who dehumanises him further by describing him as cargo and referring to him only as a number. His rapid-fire alliteration (pace/patience, babble/Babylon, paranoia-prone) is deeply evocative: “The danger, clear and present, is presented as the gift of freedom wrapped in days of rapping to himself until his vocal chords collapse.” The song, as a whole, is a tour de force.
But its momentum quickly drifts. ‘Splendor & Misery’ is a record defined by and, to an extent undone by, its use of interludes. It is home to seven segments of less than two minutes, many of which serve to keep its best moments at arms’ length from one another. That prohibits the listener from becoming fully immersed in either its thematic progress or a cohesive musical ride.
For every Wake Up, where Diggs delivers surprising melodies over a red alert beacon and a relentless beat more like a low hum, or True Believer, where we have the clanks of the spacecraft reframed as a jarring industrial beat, there are times when we are forced to appreciate the record’s ambition at the expense of engaging with it on an emotional level.
‘Splendor & Misery’ is likely to be an anomaly among anomalies in Clipping.’s catalogue; more a reminder of their creative scope than a record to revisit. Everyone should head into deep space with it at least once, though.
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