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L’Orange & Del The Funky Homosapien’s first collaboration is a magical tourney into a strange castle. The new video is stunning. Directed by Alexander Thompson, the video shows an incredibly skilled touch in combining live action, stop motion and animation.
This amalgam of art and magic looms at the spiritual core of L’Orange’s The Ordinary Man—a record vaguely reminiscent of RJD2’s Deadringer if it actually contained the power to reanimate the dead. It asserts L’Orange in a league with instrumental hip-hop legends like the aforementioned Ohio great, DJ Shadow, Wax Tailor, Blockhead, and the Avalanches. Yet it’s a singularly necromantic work that could only come from the Seattle-by-way-of-North Carolina producer.
On his third album, L’Orange builds upon his previous catalogue’s cinematic film noir and cabaret jazz fixations, but adds a thematic focus, whimsy, and feverish urgency. It arrives after a tumultuous two-year saga in which a series of tumors grew in L’Orange’s right ear, which eventually led to almost total deafness on that side. Surgeries left him off-balance and dizzy. A natural fear gripped him, causing self-doubt about whether he’d regain the totality of his gift. But as it does quite often, turmoil spurred the producer to create his most poignant body of work.
Behind the boards, L’Orange shows a master’s precision, playing with pace and tempo, telling a fully- fleshed out narrative with few words. This is The Sorcerer’s Apprentice but far more soulful. If Harry Houdini was a hip-hop head this is what he’d bump. It’s mournful blues with pianos that sparkle like a Tiffany Lamp—smooth as a gypsy stealing a wallet. Nothing ordinary about it.
Listen to the new songs today:
Look Around (feat. Oddisee) Spotify | Soundcloud | Bandcamp | Apple
The Difference (feat. Blu & Elzhi) Spotify | Soundcloud | Bandcamp | Apple
The Everyday Illusion Spotify | Bandcamp | Apple |
