This coming Bumbershoot weekend, September 2nd-4th, Sub Pop Records is fairly well-prepared, and entirely thrilled, to host the above-mentioned Art Installation, Pop-up Store & Immersive Experience - aka Bumberstore - providing a rare glimpse of the unique art, design, culture, and (of course…) merchandise associated with the label. 

You are right in identifying this as another conveniently located Sub Pop retail experience you have to buy a ticket to get into! (See also Sub Pop’s Airport Store.)

And you may (or may not) now be wondering: Exactly what sort of hocus pocus does it take to turn this…

Into this?

Like the other seven wonders of the world, we began with coffee and donuts (obvs.) Also cold pizza: breakfast of champions and losers alike!

Next, gather your brightest minds, your most idea-ful artists and designers, your typically fairly shiftless staffers. Then, sacrifice one toe. Anyone’s toe will do, however the toe of a department director is sure to stack the deck in your favor.

It takes a village. And also roughly that many pillows…

And the hearts of an entire company. 

Add merch…

And we’re also hoping to sell some records.

Three days won’t be nearly enough time, but it’ll have to do. And we’re super stoked to see you there.

Find the Sub Pop Bumberstore at the International Fountain Pavilion. (there’s a map over here.)

We’ll leave the light on for you.

Experimental Noise Hip-Hop trio Clipping made its network television debut on the Late, Late Show with James Corden just last night, performing “A Better Place” off Splendor & Misery (stream the album here). Set your sights on this magnificent performance right here, right now. 

Corden also caught up with Diggs about a number of topics, including texting regularly with his childhood hero, MC Hammer [watch it here].

Clipping is also the subject of features this week, in both the Los Angeles Times [link] and The New York Times [link].

Splendor & Misery, Clipping’s Sci-Fi/dystopian concept album, is out Friday, September 9th on CD/LP/DL/CASS, worldwide from Sub Pop [link here] and Deathbomb Arc [link here]. The album is led by highlight tracks “Baby Don’t Sleep,” “A Better Place,” and “Air ‘Em Out,”  

Preorders through Sub Pop Mega Mart and independent retailers near you will receive the Loser edition on crystal clear vinyl (while supplies last; we’re nearly sold out of these beauties in the Mega Mart).

Clipping’s current tour schedule in support of Splendor & Misery and its summer predecessor, the Wriggle EP (get it here), includes: two hometown appearances tonight, Thursday, September 8th beginning with an in-store at Amoeba Records in Hollywood (6pm), and concluding with a headline show at Highways Performance Space with Busdriver and Pedestrian Deposit (9pm); September 11th at the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival.

TOUR UPDATE - Dates added as follows: beginning October 26th in Brooklyn at the Market Hotel and ending November 4th in Austin at Sound on Sound Music Festival. Along the way, the group will see support from Youth Code (October 26-November 2nd).  Preceding the tour there will be two Southern California shows including the just-announced appearance on September 24th at Music Tastes Good Festival, and September 30th in Los Angeles at the Smell with The Mae Shi. There will be additional live dates announced soon, but for now see current dates below.

Recently, Clipping also released the gravity-defying “Air ‘Em Out” visual, which was directed by returning director Carlos Lopez Estrada (“Work Work,” “Inside Out”), and stars the group’s lyricist/frontman Daveed Diggs. (yes, he’s that Hamilton Musical, Tony Award Winning actor.)

[Photo Credit: Brian Tamborello]

What precisely have The People said about Splendor & Misery? We’re glad you asked:

“A magnificent, nerve-jangling and altogether rather riveting blast of unflinching white noise and throb, virtuoso rapping and, most improbable of all, richly romantic gospel-choir interludes designed as much to disconcert as to offer tuneful respite from and guidance through the surrounding sonic shrapnel.” [9/10, Album of the Week] - Loud & Quiet

“A hugely inventive slab of sonic theatre plotted to the tiniest detail..” [4/5] - MOJO

“Replete with sci-fi references and nudges to Afrofuturist musicians before them, the album confronts the crushing darkness inherent to the alienation of black diaspora and speculates on the identity as an intrinsically fluid process. Splendor & Misery is sincere and staunchly ambitious. With it, clipping. Have solidified their position at the forefront of experimental music.” [8.6/10] - Northern Transmissions

“The production, helmed by dual composers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes, make use of field recording techniques only instead of chimes and sampled radio alarms, the sharp clangs of breached hulls and airlocks closing are the content used to create these paranoia inducing and dissonant instrumentals. What makes Splendor & Misery beckon for repeat listens, bar Daveed Diggs torrential flow, is how concise and dense the record is. It flows like a satellite in orbit, emerging over horizons witnessing serene beauty only to encounter disruptive asteroid belts moments later like the three ‘Interlude’ tracks where Daveed spits over broken and static-laced connections.” [8/10] - CLASH

“Utterly uncomfortable, but with such an imaginative foundation that you can’t help but feel invited back to try to learn a little more about the strange and beautiful world of Clipping.” [8/10] - Under the Radar

“The space hiphoperatics of California trio Clipping extend the story of the middle passage into the cosmos.” [Album review] - The Wire

“It’s Afro-futurist dystopia from an album…that tells the “Her”-like love story of a man who survives a slave uprising on an interstellar ship and an onboard computer. That might explain the industrial sounds, pre- and post-digital revolution, and the sense of disorientation; but you don’t need to know it to feel the track’s organization and power.” [“Baby Don’t Sleep,” Playlist] - New York Times

“Beatmakers Snipes and Hutson send you plummeting into the mainframe with a musique concrète cut-up beat of television fuzz and white noise. Negative space sucks the air out of your chest as Diggs raps in an arresting staccato, deconstructing the hegemony in a most deliberate manner: “Saviors are fiction / memories are fading like ghosts.” [“Baby Don’t Sleep”] - Passion of the Weiss

“This bangs, in the most enervating fashion possible.” [“Baby Don’t Sleep”] - Stereogum

“Spirits are present in clipping.’s  video for “Air ‘Em Out.” We open on frontman Daveed Diggs settling in to another shift at his jumpsuit-requiring place of employment. As the beat builds, however,  mysterious tremors start to unsettle Diggs and the litany of office supplies at his desk. It’s another top-quality video from a group that has made a habit of just that, a simple idea perfectly executed.” [“Air ‘Em Out,” Best Videos of August 2016] - Pigeons & Planes

Tour Dates + Ticket Links

Sep. 08 - Los Angeles, CA - Amoeba Records instore (6pm)

Sep. 08 - Santa Monica, CA - Highways Performance Space* (9pm)

Sep. 11 - San Francisco, CA - San Francisco Electronic Music Festival

Sep. 30 - Los Angeles, CA - The Smell (Benefit Show)**

Oct. 26 - Brooklyn, NY - Market Hotel * ^

Oct. 27 - Baltimore, MD - Metro Gallery *

Oct. 28 - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506 *

Oct. 30 - Miami, FL - Gramps *

Nov. 01 - St. Petersberg, FL - Local 662 *

Nov. 02 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl *

Nov. 04 - Austin, TX - Sound on Sound Festival

* w/ Youth Code

** w/ The Mae Shi

^ World War (fka Mincemeat or Tenspeed)

Feast your sees and hears on Morgan Delt’s brand new Vinyl Williams directed video for “Some Sunsick Day,” the standout single from Phase Zero, his Sub Pop debut. This tripped-out new visual premiered today by way of Brooklyn Vegan (see here).

Delt’s North American fall tour begins tonight, September 14th in Chicago, IL at Schubas and ends September 24th in Brooklyn, NY at Baby’s All Right. Support for these dates will come from Sub Pop label mates Mass Gothic. (listing + links below.)

[Photo Credit: Lily Keep]

Phase Zero is now available in finer record stores throughout the known universe, and also here.  The album features singles “I Don’t Wanna See What’s Happening Outside,” “The System of 1000 Lies,” and the above-embeded “Some Sunsick Day.”

Tour Dates + Ticket Links

Sep. 14 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle

Sep. 15 - Detroit, MI - UFO Factory

Sep. 16 - Toronto, ON - The Silver Dollar

Sep. 17 - Montreal, QC - Bar Le Ritz

Sep. 20 - Washington, DC - DC9

Sep. 21 - Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle

Sep. 23 - Cambridge, MA - Middle East

Sep. 24 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby’s All Right

All dates with Mass Gothic

The Nor’Eastern Lads of LVL UP just shared an official new video for “The Closing Door,” the latest from their highly anticipated third album (and first for Sub Pop) Return To Love. This existential daydream was directed and produced by Rob Kolodny for House of Nod, and first entered the world via NPR Music premiere.

Seattle weirdo punks So Pitted just premiered an official video for “woe” from neo (their Sub Pop debut) via the discerning music consumers of Brooklyn Vegan. The visual was shot in Seattle and directed by the Fabulous Downey Brothers, and it’s poised to deliver 100% of your daily value for weirdness. 

Brooklyn Vegan describe it thusly: “Featuring some out-there animation and green-screen antics, it’s a hyperreal match to So Pitted’s melted noise (see premiere September 19th).”

So Pitted have also scheduled a fall tour in support of neo, acting as direct support for The Garden. The trek begins October 9th in Reno, NV at Holland Project and ends November 4th in Santa Barbara, CA at Velvet Jones. You’ll find a complete list of tour dates right over here.

So Pitted recently visited 90.3 KEXP for a live performance. Watch the session, to see performances of neo highlights “cat scratch,” “pay attention to me,” “woe,” PLUS a new track titled “no name #4.” You can also watch the band’s recent (+very official +very fun) Jane Child inspired video, “feed me.”

So Pitted’s neo is now available on CD / LP / DL / CASS worldwide wherever fine records are sold, and also here.