RSSL'Orange [extended]
- Old Soul [self-released, 2011] **
- The City Under the City [Mello Music Group, 2013] **
- The Night Took Us in Like Family [Mello Music, 2015] A-
- Time? Astonishing! [Mello Music Group, 2015] **
- The Life and Death of Scenery [Mello Music Group, 2016] *
- The Ordinary Man [Mello Music, 2017] ***
See Also:
Consumer Guide Reviews:
Old Soul [self-released, 2011]
Billie Holiday tribute mixtape-qua-rip, no more and definitely no less ("Lost Souls," "The Night") **
L'Orange & Stik Figa: The City Under the City [Mello Music Group, 2013]
Atmospheric North Carolina beatmaster embellishes sincere Topeka rapper, Firesign Theater chips in ("Before Midnight," "Dopamine") **
L'Orange & Jeremiah Jae: The Night Took Us in Like Family [Mello Music, 2015]
Reminding us that gangsters are an old story in the entertainment business, impressionistic beatmaster samples multiple subnoir flicks with occasional Bogart for a touch of class. The verbal content is murmured by an L.A.-based Flying Lotus subaltern constantly off kilter and on point: "Kept the spirit like K-Fed/Now I'm aiming with the crossbow off with his head/Running jewels with the Pro-Keds/We wanna run from the man for the street cred." So yes, there's a message, laugh lines too. Homeboy Sandman gets a 16. But the pull is musical, particularly the way L'Orange's rhythms shift texturally as well as temporally--every minute, new effects daub and stipple the groove. Although lighter in tone and bottom, it had me going back to Ghost Dog. Hip-hop soundtracking doesn't get more evocative than that. A-
L'Orange & Kool Keith: Time? Astonishing! [Mello Music Group, 2015]
"My lyrics seem to amaze us--all five of us," cracks the crackpot, who at least cans the porn in this multi-collab whose producer is solely responsible for the instrumental intro it never tops ("Time? Astonishing!" "Dr. Bipolar," "Upwards. To Space!") **
L'Orange & Mr. Lif: The Life and Death of Scenery [Mello Music Group, 2016]
Dystopia soundscaped, meaning technology's terrible beauty lovingly tended and paradoxically embraced ("Strange Technology," "Five Lies About the World Outside") *
The Ordinary Man [Mello Music, 2017]
Mellow, grooveful, humorous beatmaster-soundscaper emerges from a bout of hearing loss with an ear-friendly bag of tricks that's never trickier than when guest rappers pay their respects and collect a check ("Blame the Author," "Look Around," "Things Are Just Props") ***