The above image is a very accurate representation of and symbol for the anonymous Deep House duo Claptone (I don’t like using the words “Deep House”, but tracks on their SoundCloud page are categorized in that way so I have no choice. I’d be more inclined to categorize them as Tech-House and/or Disco House but that’s just me). To be honest I don’t even know if Claptone are a duo – there could easily be more members. Their bio, however, is written as if there is more than one member and until proven otherwise that is what I’m going to assume.
So what do we know besides the fact that Claptone hold true to their anonymity – by not allowing fans to know their names, and by wearing masks at their shows? Well, they hail from Berlin Germany and their music is released on Germany’s Exploited Records. After browsing through the artist list of Exploited, I didn’t recognize very many names and my assumption is most of the artists are similar in musical style to Claptone.
I took notice of Claptone after scanning the Beatport Top 10 where the song “Cream” was hovering among the top spots over the span of a few weeks not too long ago. I gave the song a quick listen thanks to Beatport’s clip player and noticed that it didn’t seem to be a banger or a club anthem the way previous Top-10 songs were (I’m thinking of tracks from the heavy hitters like Swedish House Mafia, Avicii, Afrojack, Dada Life, etc). What I noticed when listening to “Cream” was… hey, wait a minute I know this song! How did I know it? It contains a sample of Wu Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” which may be one of the biggest hip hop songs of all time. I then heard this song as part of A-Trak’s Fool’s Gold Records February 2012 mix (which is awesome by the way). As part of a mix it just hit me the right way. I did some research and here we are.
Who knows what the future of Claptone holds and if we’ll ever find out anything more about them. For now “Cream” remains at #1 on the German Club charts and was a huge hit at Miami’s Winter Music Conference 2012. But all I can say right now is they’re keeping it funky and they have the marketing ploys to keep fans asking more. How bout some tracks?!
Claptone – Cream
Claptone – Good To You
Claptone – Make Me Feel