L'Orange – The Mad Writer

November 25, 2012 • Jakarta Records

I love few things more than picking out things to listen to almost randomly and being massively surprised by something great. In this case, I've been casually looking for noir-flavored hip hop ever since I heard MF Doom's Vaudeville Villain and haven't found anything good—until I stumbled on this unique and fantastic album by L'Orange.

No point in beating around the bush—the production on The Mad Writer is simply superb, some of the best I've heard in a long time. The beats seem to ultimately derive from the old east coast sampling style with a definite southern-hip-hop flair: simple, hard drums; jazzy piano and winds; smooth and soulful musical and vocal samples; reverb and vinyl crackle topping everything off. It's nothing particularly groundbreaking, but it is very well-arranged and is great at evoking various styles and moods of early 20th century America—not to mention catchy as hell.

A lot of the intrigue (at least for me) comes from the myriad of clips from old-time radio shows and films, giving the album a dark and intriguing atmosphere. I can't really say where most come from, but there are definitely quite a few from hard-boiled-detective dramas, which I've always thought go well with this kind of hip hop. In fact, I was so intrigued by some of these samples that I've started looking into golden-age radio shows and listening to a variety of the dramas and thrillers that were so popular from the '40s to the '60s. It's really great stuff. I don't think there are many albums (if any) that have helped me get into a whole new medium like that. So even if the music sucked (which it doesn't), there's still a positive coming out of this album for me.

The rapping is obviously playing second to the production, as it only shows up on three tracks. And unfortunately while what rapping does exist is well-performed, there isn't a whole lot to comment on and it seems like a lot of it exists just to take up space. I would rather see it go one way or the other—either focus on the production and don't let the rapping distract from it, or feature rapping over most of the album so it doesn't feel out-of-place when it shows up. I do really dig the singing on "Femme Fatale", though; it has a sort of underground-vocal-jazz style that fits in perfectly.

I'm definitely glad I found this album, and hopefully I can use it as a jumping-off point for finding more of the fabled noir-hop I've been looking for all this time. And I really hope there's more from L'Orange to dig through, too.