This week we delved into more sub genres and a wide variety of electronic music such as industrial noise. While this wasn’t exactly ‘my thing’ I did really enjoy looking further into breakcore as it is a genre I had previously only discovered a few specific artists – leading me to misunderstand the meaning of the genre in its entirety. One of my favourites of these artists is Servants Of The Apocalyptic Ghost Rave which blend rapid intense breaks with an almost shoegaze/grunge/metal approach to the rest of their instrumentation. Guitars drenched in reverbs and almost unintelligible sound effects blend amazingly with chopped up drum breaks as they begin to imitate the classic double foot pedal sound that is so common in metal and its various sub genres.
Discovering Clipping whilst having some misunderstanding of what breakcore truly is was very exciting and held my attention instantly, the scattered chops and frantic arrangements serve their message and ideological views perfectly. It is quite apparent that every choice made regarding sound design was incredibly deliberate and chosen to create a certain response from the audience. As an album it is not one that I particularly enjoyed listening to, but I will likely still revist Clipping in the future. The uncomfortable abrasiveness feels a bit like a car crash – I want to look away but I just can’t. This is summed up very well in an article by the guardian:
“By the time you get to Outro and its 10-minute loop of “give money, give money, give money …” you’ll either feel exhilarated and cleansed, or be begging for mercy. But you’ll feel something” [1]
[1] Lester, P. (2013). Clipping (No 1,448). The Guardian. [online] 8 Feb. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/feb/08/clipping-new-band [Accessed 4 Dec. 2023].