Clown Core (stylized as ClownC0re) is an American musical duo. It is composed of two anonymous artists who wear clown masks, speculated to be drummer

Louis Cole Louis Maxwell Cole (born December 5, 1986) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and video producer who is the drummer, keyboardist, bassist and occasional singer of the independent electronic jazz-funk duo Knower. He is sp ...

of the indietronica/jazzfunk band Knower and

Sam Gendel Sam Gendel is an American saxophonist and music producer. Career With bassist Sam Wilkes, Gendel released the live jazz album ''Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar'' in 2018. Gendel co-wrote the tracks "Flower Moon" and "Spring Snow" on Vampir ...

, a saxophonist and frequent Cole collaborator. Their eponymous album ''Clown Core'' was released in 2010. The album ''Toilet'' followed eight years later. Their album ''Van'' was released in 2020. The EP ''1234'' released in 2021. Their projects are all self-released.

History

Clown Core's YouTube channel was created in November 2008. Their first video is a performance of their song "Surreal Cereal" from their ''Clown Core'' album. They released their eponymous debut album ''Clown Core'' in March 2010. After uploading on their channel semi-frequently, they disappeared completely in 2011. After 3 years of complete silence, they uploaded a video titled "?" that featured the question "What happened to Clowncore" in red text. They then disappeared again for another 3 years before returning with a video titled "º" which featured audio of a

spectrogram A spectrogram is a visual representation of the spectrum of frequencies of a signal as it varies with time. When applied to an audio signal, spectrograms are sometimes called sonographs, voiceprints, or voicegrams. When the data are represen ...

featuring the clowns with bold text on the top that read "WE ARE IN A TOILET", along with

morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

at the end which when decoded read "WE ARE STILL ALIVE". They uploaded two more teasers, videos titled "i" and "≈". After eight years, their second album ''Toilet'' released in March 2018, accompanied by music videos of them performing the tracks in a portable toilet. These music videos were also shown on

Adult Swim Adult Swim (stylized as

dult swim Dult is a village in Batala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab State, India. It is located from sub district headquarter, from district headquarter and from Sri Hargobindpur. The village is administrated by Sarpanch an elected representativ ...

and s is an American adult-oriented television programming block that airs on Cartoon Network which broadcasts during the evening, prime time, and Late-night television, late-night Dayparting, dayparts. T ...

's Smalls program, exposing them to a wider audience. Celia Woitas of the German magazine ''

Metal Hammer ''Metal Hammer'' is a heavy metal music magazine and website founded in 1983, published in the United Kingdom by Future, with other language editions published by different companies available in numerous other countries. ''Metal Hammer'' featu ...

'' described the music as "far removed from any music genre". In his review of the song "Hell" (2018) and analysis of the accompanying music video, Axl Rosenberg of heavy metal news website

MetalSucks MetalSucks is an American heavy metal music Heavy metal (or simply metal) is a Music genre, genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom and United States. With roots in blues rock ...

called the project "a masterpiece of modern art" and described the song as "genre-defying". Mick R. of ''New Noise Magazine'' shared the latter view: "Clown Core simply defies categorization." In August 2020, the duo uploaded a video titled "infinite realm of incomprehensible suffering", featuring new music and audio at the end which features another spectrogram that shows the clowns along with bold text at the top which reads "IT HAS BEGUN", teasing a new project. In September 2020, they released their third album ''Van'', accompanied by music videos for all the tracks, showcasing them playing the music in a 1997 Toyota Previa minivan while an unknown driver wearing a balaclava mask drives them to various locations. Sarena Kuhn of

The Daily Californian ''The Daily Californian'' (''Daily Cal'') is an independent, student-run newspaper that serves the University of California, Berkeley, campus and its surrounding community. History 20th century ''The Daily Californian'' became independent fro ...

in her review of the album described the duo as "a talented duo of musicians with a gimmick or even your own worst nightmare, they are undeniably difficult to ignore." In April 2021, they released their first EP ''1234'', and embarked on their first tour in 2023. It has been widely speculated that multi-instrumentalist and drummer

, best known for being in the band Knower and saxophonist

, who has worked with both Knower and Cole, are the two behind Clown Core.

Discography

* ''Clown Core'' (2010) * ''Toilet'' (2018) * ''Van'' (2020) * ''1234'' (2021) * ''Live'' (2024)

References

External links

* * {{Authority control American musical duos Avant-garde music groups Masked musicians