Video Written & Directed by Alexander Thompson
Starring Harwood Gordon as The Magician
Music Production: L'Orange
Vocals: Del The Funky Homosapien
About L'Orange "The Ordinary Man"
The 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 Nashville-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.
Released on Mello Music Group, The Ordinary Man chronicles the narrative of a magician who discovered late in life that his peers weren’t actually pulling rabbits from hats. Crestfallen and disillusioned, he digs deeper to push his own show into uncharted territory, demonstrating ostensibly impossible feats for crowds too terrified to ask for the reveal.
As the audience gradually realizes that his practice of the dark arts isn’t fraudulent, people from all around the world flock to him. Unfortunately, this loyalty to what he was rather than what he did becomes patronizing and dull—engendering a bitterness and disenchantment that leads him to finally disappear in front of millions of stunned onlookers.
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.
Tune in for archaic old-time glamour interspersed with insight into the timeless oracular mystery at the center of our existence. You spy bizarre astrological charts and hear acts of levitation. This is the Aleister Crowley material: stuff that defies explanation, what Ripley went looking for. Harry Potter meeting the hellhound on your trail. Nothing ordinary about it.
Mixed by Seiji Inouye
Mastered by Joe Hutchinson
Additional Instrumentation by Paul Defiglia
COMPLETE CREDITS:
Producers - Aditya Nair & Kelsey Gilchrist
Executive Producer - Michael Tolle & Austin Hart
Associate Producer - Jess Matney
Production Designer - Eliza Roberts
Director of Photography - Harper Alexander
Editor - Zach Kashkett
Costume Designer - Whitney Oppenheimer
Character Design, Stop-Motion Animation - Austin Taylor
Outer Space & Landscape Compositing - Isaiah King
Crystal Ball 2D Animation - Griffin Giersch
2D Animation Clean Up - Catherine Salisbury
CG “Magic” Animation - Evan Ausmus
Flame Artist - Maury Rosenfeld
Colorist - Robert Crosby
Conform Artist - Mannix Rickenbacker
Rotoscope Artist - Carolyn Woods
1st Assistant Director - Jeff Pennington
Hair & Makeup - Rebecca Pederson
Assistant Camera - Ona Isart
Dolly Grip - Adam Everett
Set Construction Foreman - Drew Barnett
Miniatures & Storyboards - Eliza Roberts
Title Designer - Justine Gordon
Sound Designer & Re-Recording Mixer - Milos Zivkovic
Assistant Editor - Hunter Lurie
Data Wrangler - Tracy Hollins
Special Thanks:
Sofi Camera Rental
On The Mark Media
Neptune Post
Union Editorial
Resolution LA
Michael Raimondi
Todd Iorio
Logan Aries
Einar Thornsteinsson
Jay Freidkin
Noah Haeussner
Chase White
The Oganesyan Family
Debi Berlin
Jessica Makinson
Sounds Beautiful Like The Truth
Mello Music Group, 2017
Keywords: L'Orange, Del The Funky Homosapien, Blame The Author, The Ordinary Man, Mello Music Group, Hip-Hop, Rap, Electronic, Underground Hip-Hop, Magic
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