In Grand Theft Auto, we cruised through Los Santos to his music. Paul Simon called his 2014 record »Tayi Bebba« a »masterpiece«. And in his record case, records by Marcos Valle are lined up with Cypress Hill and super rare Afrobeat releases. Clap! Clap!, actually Cristiano Crisci, is one of the figureheads of the Bristol-based label Black Acre. If you put on the Italian producer’s records, you hear kalimbas strumming while beats roam like hyenas through the Sahel. No wonder Gilles Peterson was keen on this producer from minute one.

In the meantime, Clap! Clap! has released three records. His musical map has become large, he has seen the world. »Liquid Portraits«, released in 2020, even dispenses with the shaman chants he still used in early EPs. That’s why you can listen to this music in a way that sounds as if Bonobo had met Flying Lotus at a footwork seminar, only to take a completely detached painting course in Dorian Concept’s class afterwards. That’s a lot of fun. Too much to be canned away in a post-colonial seminar. Crisci, who now lives in Toscana, checks out how to put feel-good vibes over beats that limp more than a one-legged drummer after a drum solo.

Speaking of percussion. With the Italian percussionist Domenico Candellori, Clap! Clap! recently released a new record in the spirit of percussion. Torozebu is the advanced training seminar after five years of studying Talking Heads, a drum circle as dialogue, the corkscrew for the lumbar group! If you’re usually looking for salvation in the 808 rumble, here you’ll get the drum paradise baked out in compression. In other words: This thing pushes so hard that tears roll down your cheeks from all the sand whirling up. For HHV Records, Clap! Clap! took out his record case and mixed the records that put him in the perfect mood for »Torozebu«.