L’Orange is a producer from North Carolina who’s only been putting out music for the last couple of years. In that short time, though, he’s been able to establish a unique sound and has delivered some fully formed conceptual projects, often including cinematic, noir-influenced themes. The Mad Writer is his latest effort, and it’s his strongest to date.

What hit me very quickly when listening to L’Orange is the great understanding he has of how to effectively use cinematic samples in his songs, namely the movie quotes. He keeps them long enough to communicate points effectively, but not so long that they lose momentum and cause the song to grind to a halt. Most importantly, though, they are always used in conversation with the music, and he keeps everything as a whole moving in the right direction. L’Orange works with a wisdom and understanding of a much more seasoned producer, and his ability to pay attention to minor details and keep the big picture in focus is commendable. He manages to incorporate samples from old records and movies (mostly pre-1950) and recontextualizes them into a hip hop format that is somewhere between Massive Attack and MF Doom, minus the sense of novelty that Doom so often employs. He also brings in a few guest artists, including emcees yU, Has-Lo, Blu, and, most surprisingly, Nashville singer-songwriter Erica Lane. Everything flows naturally together, with the vocal tracks fitting next to the instrumental tracks perfectly. Because the production is of such a high level, it’s easy to get lost in the album and to lose focus on just how dense each track is, and how well L’Orange builds on themes, and subtly complicates and varies the musical elements in each song.

With The Mad Writer, L’Orange has vaulted himself very quickly to the front of the pack in an age of a million up and coming hip hop producers. His production displays not only a great sense of musicality, but great artistic vision. I’ve listened to this album over and over, but I know there’s a great deal I’ve yet to uncover as a listener, which is very exciting. I can’t wait to see where L’Orange’s career goes from here.