Waterfalls would make a perfect backdrop for A$AP to wander in and achieves a positively psychedelic level of disorientation. The Rainforest EP is basically LiveLoveA$AP minus A$AP, and if its title suggests anodyne ambient nature-muzak (and there are indeed birds tweeting on one of the five instrumentals) then this is new age twisted and contorted. Each track starts with a 'wow!' moment then proceeds from there. Of its five tracks, Leaf featuring Main Attraktionz (also in that Spin issue) is fantastic, more torpid than a tortoise, Wassup is Drake-ishly dirgy, everything swamped by Clams' thick soup of sound, while Demons adds swirling loveliness to CC's repertoire. You can hear that A$AP/Clams team-up on Spotify and the way he imports that sluggardly, intense chillfuck mood. But what excites most is that Volpe is being hired out by rappers (not just A$AP but Lil B and Soulja Boy as well) to replicate that air of sludgy gloom and trippy weirdness. It shares an atmosphere of gloom and sludgy texture with some of the best chillwavers and witch house artists, and it's no coincidence that Clams' EP comes out on Tri Angle, home of Balam Acab, oOoOO, How to Dress Well and Holy Other.

It's a distinctive sound-world he envelops A$AP in, and he immerses himself in it, too, on his Rainforest debut EP – a 'chlorine fog' of sound, according to Pitchfork, which evocatively captures the miasmic, slow, stoned, screwed/skewed strangeness of it all. This mixtape of his shows he has more to give, credit for which in no small part must go to Mr CC and the 'hypnagogic hip-hop' style he brings to bear on his own and other people's recordings. We loved A$AP before, but we were worried his amazing track Peso was just that – a fluke, a stunning one-off. But we've been moved to finally write about him today by the excellence of his production for A$AP Rocky's new mixtape, LiveLoveA$AP.

The background: He's been around for a while, has 23-year-old Michael Volpe aka Clams Casino, as featured on the cover of Spin magazine's The Changing Face of Hip Hop issue alongside Odd Future, A$AP Rocky, Yelawolf, G-Side, Big K.R.I.T., Curren$y, Araabmuzik and more.

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