Today, Tuesday, February 20th, marks the release of a split single featuring Clipping’s “Tipsy” and Cooling Prongs’ “Midnight,” available worldwide from Sub Pop.
Clipping’s “Tipsy” was previously only available as part of the 2020 Save Stereogum, an exclusive ‘00s Covers Comp and crowdfunding campaign for the site’s supporters. Clipping was one of 40 artists asked to record never-before-heard covers of songs from 2000-2009. Clipping says, “J-Kwon’s ‘Tipsy’ is one of the greatest party rap songs of all time. We could never make a beat as hard as the original, so we took our version in another direction — something like if Skinny Puppy had somehow remixed it in the late 1980s.”
“Midnight” by Cooling Prongs (AKA Christopher Fleeger, who collaborated with Clipping on Double Live) is a musique concrète tribute to Ice-T’s classic track of the same name. Fleeger’s process involved recording for many weeks, every night between midnight and 6am, with microphones mounted to the outside of his van, at all the locations mentioned in the lyrics to the original song. Hundreds of hours of audio were edited and arranged to create a field-recording companion to the journey the rapper describes through South Central Los Angeles, from the AMPM location on Vermont, through all of the intersections he names, finally ending at Ice-T’s childhood home, just off Crenshaw.
Clipping’s “Tipsy” and Cooling Prongs’ “Midnight” split single is available now worldwide digitally from Sub Pop. Fans in North America can purchase the 7” single, which is limited to 2,000 copies, from megamart.subpop.com, select independent retail stores, and Clipping’s Bandcamp page. In the UK and Europe, the 7” is available to preorder now through select UK/EU Independent retailers and Sub Pop’s new Mega Mart 2 (estimated to ship in mid-March).
Clipping has also scheduled a series of UK & European tour dates for 2024, which begin Thursday, April 18th in Tilburg, NL with an appearance at the Roadburn Festival, and run through Thursday, April 25th in Leeds, UK at Project House.
Fri. Apr. 19 – Tilburg, NL – Roadburn Festival
Sat. Apr. 20 – Krems an der Donau, AT – Donaufestival
Sun. Apr. 21 – Munich, DE – Zirka
Mon. Apr. 23 – Koln, DE – Club Volta
Wed. Apr. 24 – Brussels, BE – Les Nuits Botanique
Thu. Apr. 25 – Leeds, UK- Project House