Clipping. – KRANKk – Sharon Udoh
CLIPPING
Last Halloween, Los Angeles experimental rap mainstays Clipping ended their three-year silence with the horrorcore-inspired album There Existed an Addiction to Blood. This October, rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson return with an even higher body count, more elaborate kills, and monsters that just won’t stay dead.Visions of Bodies Being Burned is less a sequel than it is the second half of a planned diptych. It turns out, Clipping took to the thematic material of horrorcore like vampires to grave soil. In the years following Splendor & Misery—the band’s acclaimed dystopian science fiction-rap epic—they simply made too many songs for one album.
Visions of Bodies Being Burned contains sixteen more scary stories disguised as rap songs, incorporating as much influence from Ernest Dickerson, Clive Barker, and Shirley Jackson as it does from Three 6 Mafia, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Brotha Lynch Hung.Each track pairs a different expression of horror with one of Clipping’s signature metamorphic takes on a hip-hop subgenre. Their new album finds Clipping building upon the language of their already-revolutionary music, while still making the trunk rattle on dilapidated hearses and demon-possessed Plymouth Furys.
KRANKk
Two years after unleashing their groundbreaking debut album “Dark,” the inventive KRANKk crew from Antwerp is back to redefine the musical landscape. Comprising the talented musicians and producers Aram Abgaryan on keys, Thomas Geysen on drums, and Willem Heylen handling guitar and electronics, this trio is about to push the boundaries once more.
What sets KRANKk apart is their boundless versatility and their propensity for pushing the limits of their craft. Drawing inspiration from the heart of UK Garage, they’ve now ventured into the realm of Drum & Bass, where they’ve masterfully taken the genre’s signature features – the rapid breakbeats, foreboding basslines, menacing reese sounds, and enveloping harmonies – and given them their unique, innovative twist.
Their latest EP, “THR33FOLD,” hit the airwaves in the spring of 2023 through Radar Records, a sublabel of the legendary DJ Murdock’s Rampage Records. DJ Murdock, renowned as the mastermind behind Rampage, the world’s largest Drum & Bass and Dubstep event, and a prominent Studio Brussel DJ, has recognized their exceptional talent.
SHARON UDOH
Sharon Udoh (they/she) is a gay, first-generation Nigerian-American composer, pianist, arranger, and vocalist. Their work abandons genre for the expansive, to focus on human complexity, chaos, and connection. She sometimes takes the stage under the name Counterfeit Madison, whose performances have been described as a warm bowl of soup, a tornado, a jalapeño pepper, a Jackson Pollock painting, a bulldozer, dangerous yet kind, and magnetic.
Her work, both original and arranged, has been commissioned by New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus, Atlanta Women’s Chorus, and D-Composed Chicago. She lives in the Midwest and has an absurd millennial addiction to sparkling water.
