t boils down to this. If you are a respected underground MC with lyrical ability who has managed to get an album worth of instrumentals from the next big thing in hip-hop production, is there really any need to pretend you are a time warped version of your cartoon character alias? No, there isn’t.

Viktor Vaughn is the second recording alias (along with King Geedorah) of MF Doom, who in a former career was Zev Love X from the mildly controversial and rather unlucky KMD (DJ died in a car crash, Black Bastards LP pulled from the shelves). Y’know, I can go along with the idea that Zev moved onto the MF Doom persona (a twist on the genesis of Marvel's Dr Doom) as he left mainstream hip-hop behind, plotting his revenge on the formulaic and two-faced industry that chewed him up and spat him out. I can rein in my cynicism enough to see how that works: it's like a sensible step on from the way D12 use an alias to pass the responsibility and fuck the consequences with rhymes about anally violating someone's Grandmother with a spiked bat and pretending it was your alter ego.

Putting this LP out under the Vaughn alias is a pretty pointless idea, though; it sounds like MF Doom, he raps about the same topics as MF Doom, it is MF Doom. To make matters worse, the whole concept is fundamentally silly: the story goes that Viktor is a younger version of MF Doom trapped in the early 90's until he can repair his time machine. I just don't hear this in the record and if it wasn't for the press releases and interviews around this release I'd pretty much totally unaware that that’s what this LP is about. This isn’t a real concept LP in terms of either all the songs being part of a linear story cycle or songs being based around a theme like The Chronic (smoking spliff) or Disintegration (hitting Thirty) were; this is basically some scattered but interesting lyrical ideas (not including the poor man’s Quantum Leap idea) held together by some peerless outside production work, without which Vaudeville Villain wouldn’t even be showing up beyond the elitist undie radar.

Doom normally produces his own material, but here he only manages to slip in 11 Dr. Doom cartoon samples which inconveniently overlap most of the tracks. Shame no one at the label had the sense to program these as separate tracks, or remove them, as I could’ve saved myself some time editing these pointless skits out. Anyway, his production style is far too repetitive and simplistic; he can build a good loop but he doesn’t progress his stuff beyond that and his rhymes always outclass the music he produces. His instrumentalist showcase discs Special Herbs Vol. 1 & 2 make for sleepy listening, you’d need to have smoked as much as Tricky and B-Real do in an average evening to nod along with these thin efforts. Additionally, I'm ambivalent about Doom's lyrical skills on the whole. To me, he's a slightly above average MC with some good one liners. These can be hard to catch on the first few passes as he rarely splits his words into sizeable chunks or tries to round off his volleys with the best lines.

The real strength of Vaudeville Villain is the work laid down by the New York based Sound Ink label producers; King Honey, Heat Sensor and Max Bill. It's incredible music (and as a bonus, Doom seems to have stepped his game up here) and this should be the boost needed to propel them into the big league, they just need all important Jigga stamp of production approval to come in for the mainstream to accept them. Where the Anti Pop Consortium tried and failed to match Warp style electronica with hip-hop production structures, these guys manage to assimilate the strengths of both into a potent compound. Too often this style can sound like appalling freeform outlandishness for its own sake or create the irritating clanging of two disparate elements, but this is the real deal. There are no MOP style club anthems here and your sister won’t be asking you to burn the new Viktor Vaughn tune for her, but it is laptop hip-hop you can enjoy, not just appreciate. In these times of ADD and Radiohead blipverts, hip-hop producers seem to want to get to the hook as soon as possible to ensnare the listener, but here the beats are allowed to sit and unravel without interruption from Doom, shout outs to record companies or even choruses.

Heat Sensor's work on "Modern Day Mugging" splutters, fades and chimes like a mobile phone tone coming through a few house walls on top of thudding beats and sharp ricocheting percussion like something from Autechre's Tri Repetae, those moments where the melodies began to meet the freefall electronics. Doom drops some quotable punchlines like "wylin' out like Bob Dylan hair" in a brief tale of a robbery gone wrong. “Raedawn” (another Heat Sensor track) sounds like a beefed up Boards of Canada impression, still retaining that melancholy air without the pastoral or childlike elements. The beats and melodies never give the impression that this is IDM with a hip-hop beat or vice versa; it's seamless. Max Bill's best track here showcases a rattling bucket of chimes melody on "G.M.C." which triumphs over some cheesy freestyle Doom lines (at least I hope they're freestyles, or he needs a good editor) and being bookended by cartoon skits.

Along with the title track, one of most straightforward hip-hop productions here is "Lickupon", based on the same cleverly manipulated sample from Issac Hayes “Walk on By” that was used on Biggie's “The Warning” except this time with added cuckoo clock. Check out the difference between this and the laziness of producers and artists like RZA and more recently, Ludacris, to see how they just lifted chunks of the track wholesale and how Heat Sensor actually creates something bigger than the sum of the original lift. RJD2, the underground's version of the Neptunes, offers up “Saliva”, another of his usual ‘soon to be a famous freestyle bed’ classic. A good solid hip-hop track, but with an oddly mixed horn hook (it's far too quiet) that lacks the punchiness found in his normal formula.

You could easily confuse instrumentals of the majority of Vaudeville Villain (please, let there be a release sometime soon) with some lost Warp release, a Rob Brown demo before it goes through the full Autechre treatment or a decent Chris Clark track (though those are in rare supply these days). Hopefully Doom will learn some production tips from the Sound Ink guys, because soon they'll be servicing the more commercial end of the market, and he’ll be wearing a cheap plastic mask rapping over a soul loop of his own devise.