The producer prides himself on his eclectic sampling and eagerness to evaporate the boundaries between forms of aural expression in a swirl of long-filter cigarette smoke. What's he working with? You hear the octavized vocal soul samples and record crack so loved by the likes of Dilla and Madlib, the pinchy snare on the third beat that lets you know this is hip-hop - but the sampling is just so much more diverse. L'Orange digs into the Golden Age of Hollywood and commercial jingles from decades past. He makes the sound one. "Goodbye, "from L'Orange's first EP, has just such an emergent property of sound.
This is the modern film noir soundtrack. Somebody grab Marlene Dietrich.
And here's the track that has seen so much well-earned publicity in recent months, from L'Orange's latest release, The Mad Writer.
And album art by British pop artist Craig Shields. L'Orange calls himself the "Henry Miller of hip-hop." Prom Sawyer will not argue with that.
