- I don’t know about you, but where I live there is a main road with horns and sirens and exhausts. A flight path full of 787s and a320s. Neighbours in close proximity, on all sides, with their lives transmitting. On any given day, this shroud of projected narrative and motif will change in bursts and eruptions, or flickers and fades. I have a neighbour who loves being handy to a soundtrack of trance, he makes himself known on the weekend, never on a weekday. The working week is built upon commuting crescendos and domestic chores. Bins rattle and planes rumble. Someone is shouting, a dog barks, a baby cries. And then there’s me, amongst it, either listening, thinking or contributing to that miasma of modernity.

There is a group out of L.A. that captures modernity and all of its serenity ruining sounds. Clipping., are one of the more sophisticated experimental hip hop groups. With the release of Midcity in 2013 and the self-titled album in 2014, the trio have proven to be powerful and poignant. And now, in the lead up to their next full length, they’ve released the equally interesting ep, Wriggle.

What’s interesting about it, is that they’re capturing the sounds and sentiments of L.A. and overdriving them into the soberingly satirical. For the most part, the first three tracks are what we’ve come to expect from Clipping. Shooter being the most affecting as it samples the various sounds that come from assembling, loading and shooting of a firearm. Which isn’t so much the sounds of L.A. as it is America.

Where this project extends itself - and sets up certain expectations about the impending album - is the introduction of footwork elements is the later half. Wriggle is a wild mesh of power electronics and frenetic footwork rhythms. The Whitehouse sample serves to heighten the aggression in the instant gratification it addresses. The following Hot Fuck No Love offers further syncopation, sinking their teeth deeper into that Chicago sound.

And as it stands, these tracks are essentially 808s and white noise - a combination that if we’re to carry on with Clipping sampling their environments is quite the indictment on contemporary hip hop. With this ep, Clipping seem to be solidifying their position as experimental punks. But it’s not a position that uses aggression or combative noise, it cuts at your perception with sleek precision.

- NJR.