Aural Pleasure, The Tenth Day of Xmas

On the tenth day of Xmas my AP gave to me ... ten wolves a-waiting. Eek, that's scary, lemme try again, how about ten orchestras a- ... um orchestrating? I don't think that works. How about ten drum loops a- ... looping? Man, this just gets harder and harder as I go along. Let's just get to album numero ten.

The Waiting Wolf - Vespertina

Did you know that Jedi Mind Tricks released a new album this year? Yeah, did you also know that I don't really care? That's pretty big since I really love many of JMT's previous releases, their latest two albums though? Eh, well I just can't get into them. So why am I even bringing this up? Because, along with the news that JMT released a new album, came the news that their badass DJ/producer Stoupe left the group, he wasn't even on their latest release. This is a big deal, Stoupe is fucking amazing, I always had this sinking feeling that Stoupe is why I really listened to JMT, I guess I was right (There's another major factor too, but I won't get into that here). Anyway, For those not in the know (God I say that a lot), Stoupe is an underground rap producer that is mainly affiliated with JMT, and there's also the small fact that he could easily give Danger Mouse a run for his money. This isn't a crack against Danger Mouse, on the contrary, I love the mouse, but Stoupe is phenomenal, just listen to some old JMT tracks to see what I mean.

So if Stoupe left JMT, then what in the world has he been up to? Well, for one thing he teamed up with the classically inspired vocalist and pianist Lorrie Doriza and produced an album that's very much opera meets hip-hop. This team up is Vespertina and the result is awesome. If all this sounds familiar then you're right, Stoupe is so very much a still underground Danger Mouse, and he's even starting to follow the same producing pattern, albeit on the down low. Seriously, I suggest keeping an eye on Stoupe, in a few years he may be drawing in names as big as the mouse does. Mark my words. Anyway, the combination of classical and hip-hop isn't necessarily new, but Doriza brings a lot to the mix. She's cute, sultry, and can throw down a catchy melody on top of all the opera-hop going on underneath. This album is catchy, fun, has some badass beats, and it all comes off sounding like some dark sad fairy tale. You know, sometimes that's all you need.

Unfortunately, at the moment you can't find The Waiting Wolf on Spotify, so I'll just link to their bandcamp site where you can listen to a couple of songs. Also a simple google search brings up great songs directly from youtube (I really like "Plastic" fyi), isn't the internet amazing.