The critically acclaimed West Coast-based experimental hip-hop trio, “clipping" consist of producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson, alongside multihyphenate MC, Daveed Diggs.

Clipping initially rose to prominence with their debut album MIDCITY and follow up CLPPNG. In 2016 they released their opus, SPLENDOR & MISERY, a science fiction concept album that garnered international critical acclaim, including a Hugo Award nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation. This was only the second time ever a music album was nominated, putting them up against the likes of GAME OF THRONES and BLACK MIRROR. Their follow up, THE DEEP, garnered similar attention including another Hugo Award nomination as well as influencing a Simon & Schuster published novel of the same name. Most recently the band diverted from their sci-fi storytelling and released a horror-based concept album, THERE EXISTED AN ADDITION TO BLOOD. Line of Best Fit’s Jack Bray hailed it as “sonically intriguing” and “another successful experiment for the group and one of the eeriest examples of modern hip-hop to date.” This was followed up by their acclaimed ‘sequel’ album, VISIONS OF BODIES BEING BURNED.

The shape-shifting drone, modern classical, outrock and extreme metal collective, led by the enigmatic and visionary musician JR Robinson, came into chaotic life in 2006 with the modus operandi of performing and recording long pieces in museums, mausoleums and other impressive public spaces. Over three inimitable albums, released at a feverish pace (You’ve Always Meant So Much to Me, 2013; Then It All Came Down, 2014; Night of Your Ascension, 2015) JR proved himself to be a master collaborator - curating and orchestrating the talents of such varied underground luminaries as Jef Whitehead of Leviathan; Alexander Hacke of Einstürzende Neubauten; David Yow of The Jesus Lizard; Chip King and Lee Buford of The Body; Marissa Nadler; Sanford Parker of Minsk; the free-improv cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm; Chris Brokaw of Codeine; and jazz composer Ken Vandermark. Following the critical success of last year’s Night Of Your Ascension, which featured no less than 30 musicians, JR felt it was time to seek out new methods, processes and creative strategies. Focusing his energies on a smaller collective. Wrekmeister Harmonies core is JR (vocals, guitar) and Esther Shaw (keyboards, piano, violin, vocals). They are joined by Godspeed You! Black Emperor musicians Thierry Amar on bass and contrabass; Sophie Trudeau on piano, violin and vocals; and Timothy Herzog on drums. The title of the album originates from the text of If This Is A Man, Primo Levi’s meditation on the year the author spent as an inmate at Auschwitz. The Italian Jewish chemist and anti-fascist resistance fighter suggested in this seminal work that inhumanity comes about when things change slowly and people begin accepting things that they would normally find reprehensible. JR adds: “I wanted to sonically convey the idea of slow, creeping change. When I came up with the title I was thinking of how when daylight turns to night time it’s a very gradual process. You are lulled into watching this slow, peaceful sunset but then all of a sudden you look up and it’s dark.” The album opens up with ‘Light Falls I: The Mantra’ with JR intoning the phrases, “Stay in, go out, get sick, get well, light falls” over a swelling riff that features the albums only two guest musicians, singer songwriter Ryley Walker and Cooper Crain of Cave and Bitchin Bajas, solidifying the idea of slow change, easing the passage toward something cataclysmic - both sonically and spiritually. The album builds inexorably towards the Muddy Waters referencing centrepiece, ‘Where Have You Been My Lovely Son?’ which has “an incredibly personal” meaning for JR: “It is about the disintegration of a relationship that I had with my son’s mother. My son and I had a really intense, close relationship and as a result of this break up I’ve lost that connection. There has been a lot of difficulty and a lot of uncomfortable moments, so it was a personal message to my son.” And then finally, Wrekmeister Harmonies’ most focussed album to date resolves in the tempestuous, apocalyptic ‘Some Were Saved Some Drowned’. From the striking eschatological sleeve art created by outsider artist and Rudimentary Peni founder Nick Blinko to the new and invigorating band format Wrekmeister Harmonies are ready to progress to the next stage of their journey. John Doran, London, May 2016

Je pense une chose, j'en dis une deuxième, j'en fais une troisième "   Partant de ce postulat anodin, les oui mais non jouent un rock instrumental polymorphe. Tantôt égaré en pleine savane, tantôt stoïque, tantôt frénétique, ce trio, quatuor, quintet vogue tel une carpe dans des ruisseaux noise, post rock et krautrock.  

For  some  years  now,  Edgar  (animo)  proceeds  on  a  tortuous  path.  After three  albums  released  quite  confidentially  and  a  few  concerts  with  bands such  as  31Knots,  Mono,  Kommandant  Cobra,  Aucan,  Edgar  (animo)  is releasing  a  new  album  entitled  'Pandide'  on  the  newly  established  tiny label dear.deer.records. Four heads, eight hands, their manifold instruments, voices here and there. The new release entitled ‘Pandide’ includes five (math/art/post) rock songs, with  afrobeat  and  jazz  assaults.  Guitars  and  drums  are  balanced  with acidulous  keys,  warmish  double  bass,  windy  cornet and  vibrating balafon. In a few months only, between Andenelle and Brussels, this rich landscape was recorded by Pierre Constant (Sweek, La Tentation Nihiliste), Charray (Mambo). Pandide. Crawling under the mould, fierce and naive. They remain here for a moment, then jump into the clouds, soothed.  In the telescope, they seem to  be  in  love.  Their  height  might  however  become  a  threat:  reaching  the saturation  point,  they  rain.  On  the  floor,  they  are  confounded with  the mineral, they fill the cracks. Microscopically, they are porous then.