It’s almost illogical that screw-faced old hip-hop should be commandeering Volpe’s tranquil beauty. Partly accounting for Clams’ omnipresence is his sound’s versatility as a fit-all atmospheric counterpoint to any rapper who has ever hijacked his instrumentals. With the original tracks stripped of the MCing, ‘Instrumental Mixtape 2’ provides some explanation as to why an outsider auteur is working with the most progressive rappers in America, a unique voice in a homogenised mainstream. Imagine Cocteau Twins made entirely of codeine fumes or choral music crushed by power electronics. It’s the menacing echo of screwed hip-hop and mutated pop quivering in a vortex of urban ambience. Until then, he’ll have to settle for being the sound of 2012, and the sound in question is a mix of heavenly and hallucinatory, translucent, but stodgified with elephantine bass and cavernous beats. Considering, as well, Volpe’s influence on Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye – himself leading an R&B revolution – Clams is a man who’s gonna have a big say in how 2013 will sound.

Basically, Michael Volpe is co-ordinating a rap renaissance on three fronts: LA’s Lil B-fronted ‘Based’ revolution Orlando, Florida’s ‘cloud-rap’, spearheaded by Main Attrakionz and New York’s so-called ‘hipster-hop’, whose figurehead A$AP Rocky has Clams to thank for the epic ‘Palace’.

Right now, Clams Casino is the shit-hottest producer in the world, the single point at which a clutch of America’s most cutting-edge trends converge.

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