We may never know much about the man behind the name The Waxidermist, but we do know that the French producer makes records, and we can at least talk about what the man is laying down on wax. Last December, we got an EP called The Snow that hinted at bigger things to come. Now those bigger things are here in the form of an album called The Origami Case.

The album is called The Origami Case because of the way The Waxidermist folds in soul, jazz, funk, hip hop and soundtracks. What this means in reality is that The Waxidermist is producing a hip hop album that draws upon symphonic samples alongside your classic breakbeat sources to make songs that are funky and maybe a little grand in their appearance. Along the way, we get plenty of guests, including Mattic, RacecaR, Venomous 2000, Green T, Anna Kova, and FP. With the exception of FP, everyone get multiple appearances, so to a certain extent we do get some consistency across the album so it doesn’t sound too random. On the other side, this doesn’t sound like an album that was planned out thematically or anything. There’s not much of a through line from start to finish, other than just the general style that The Waxidermist trades in. It’s a good collection of singles, to be sure, and there are plenty of funky breakbeats to get people on the dance floor if you were going to through this on at a party. It’s a fun listen, just not necessarily something that stands out as any sort of bigger artistic statement other than just giving us some fun hip hop to listen to.

Sometimes things get packaged and sold as something fancier than they are. That seems to be the case with The Origami Case. This album isn’t anything out of the ordinary, but it is a solid hip hop album with plenty of funky rhymes and beats. No one is going to be too disappointed by this album.