Splendor & Misery (Anniversary X)

Splendor and Misery (Anniversary X) marks ten years of Clipping’s Hugo Award-nominated sci-fi opus, returning in a deluxe edition with revised art, the original album, and eight previously unreleased songs and alternate takes.

An Afrofuturist dystopian concept record, Splendor and Misery follows the lone survivor of a slave uprising aboard an interstellar cargo ship, and the onboard computer that falls in love with him. It is a striking piece of world-building, full of tension, movement, and imagination.

Clipping turn the ship itself into an instrument, with music mapped from shuddering hulls, chirping panels, engines, and machinery, while Daveed Diggs threads through it all with razor-sharp, rhythmic lyricism. A bold and singular album that still sounds ahead of its time.