Flying Lotus
Warp
Warp’s recent rock renaissance with guitar-based acts such as Battles, the omnipresent cash-cow that is Maximo Park and recently signed post prog-rockers Pivot may have had fans wondering if this was a perhaps a new direction for the label. With their latest high profile release coming in the form of the sophomore album from 21st century beat magician Flying Lotus, it seems its business as usual for the label that brought you electronic pioneers Aphex Twin, Autechre and Nightmares on Wax. Following Flylo’s brilliantly received Reset EP for the label last October, Los Angeles shows this LA talent truly opening up to provide an emotional journey through off-kilter polyrhythms and aerial currents.
From the bars of dramatic opener Brainfeeder, to the soothing loops of closing track Auntie’s Lock/Infinitum, Flying Lotus is on a deep groove. The Vangelis-like melodrama of Brainfeeder, all slow, jutting synths and emotional weight, crackles its wayinto the shaking kick-drum and steady rim-shots of Breathe Something/Stellar Star, with it’s soft bass licks reminiscent of early releases from Skam Records. Along with following track Beginners Falafel, the scene is set for the first section of the album; pitched down, tripped out beatery with a tough boom-bap edge. This combines perfectly with tracks like Melt! and Comet Course, the former of which melds the swagger of West Coast hip hop with carefully edited afro-beat rhythms and a deceptively killer atonal bass beat. This is music drenched in the sunshine of the American west coast, the skipping ride of Comet Course pertaining to the ambiance of a busy LA morning, whilst, referencing the astrophysical journeys of jazz great Pharoah Sanders.
The dual themes of sunshine and light are carried on in the dilated atmospherics of ambient interludes such as Orbit 405, with its stuttering bass notes layered with as much crackle and reverb as you could wish for, before the truly blissed out sunset-vibes and organic ballin’ of other album highlight Golden Diva come into play. With its click-clack snare, melodic looped keys and vocal snippets, Golden Diva demonstrates Flylo’s skill in subtly building a track through use of echo and layering, the listener being slowly transported to different sections of the composition, yet only really noticing at the last minute. The dreamlike outro of Golden Diva leads us to the crushing bass stomp of Riot,which comes through with treated vocal samples and background electronics, with a melody constructed from aggressive doubled-up ringing effects and a jangled guitar sample, before a brief sample of Vincent Price’s psychotic cackle from Thriller is subsumed by an apocalyptic, staggering beat.
It’s this manner of suddenly switching directions in a track that creates openness within the album, almost as if the tracks constitute a collection of intricately developed sketches. This is echoed again in GNG BNG where a steady-rolling back-snapping bounce is coupled with a looped sitar sample, before being replaced by a damagingly echoed boom-bap rhythm and devilish bass track reminiscent of a beefed-up, crunked out Eric B beast.
This ability to make devastating party numbers, yet remain a master of subtle ambient layering is one of many similarities Flying Lotus shares with that UK genius of bass driven emotional fallout, Burial. If Burial’s dark, mournful compositions, peppered with glowing embers of warmth and soul are the negative image, Flying Lotus provides the positive. This is something Flylo picks up on in conversation, his friendly demeanour belaying the emotional content within his music. “When I heard Burial in LA, I thought y’know (sic) ‘yeah man, this is good, this is nice’ but I only picked up on the layering when I was in London, and then I was like ‘this is the sound of this place”. So does this suggest that geography could possibly work against the universality of music? No. For Flying Lotus it’s about the individual journey of the listener; “I didn’t want to make it too specific, I wanted to keep it open to the listener and ensure there was space for the person to travel within the music. But I do think this record makes most sense in LA, because I made it when I was dying out there in the sun y’know?” This deeply cinematic, even visual aspect to Los Angelesruns throughout the record, invoking psychedelic snippets of its namesake and mixing them into one cohesive whole. A mixture of atmospheric evocations and versatile influences places the album next to David Holmes’s groundbreaking Lets Get Killed, yet the influence runs far deeper than that, with anyone from David Axelrod to Fela Kuti being mixed into a portrait of musical synaethesia.
However, this is not a record simply reflecting time, place or even geography, for Flying Lotus, the journey undertaken in his music is deep;“making a record is like a journal y’know? It’s a reflection of where you are at that time. This record definitely has more of my personal experience in it than my debut, both good and bad.” Some of this bad experience could be related to the recent death of his great-aunt, the revered jazz organist, harpist and pianist Alice Coltrane. This is touched upon in Aunties Harp, a track that is a fitting collaboration between the two, revolving a sample of the late Miss Coltrane’s harp over the top of a mesmerising, rattlling rhythm, before falling into the creeping double bass and beautifully smoked-out vocals of Gonja Sufi on Testament.
It is this second string to the Flying Lotus bow that demonstrates his real versatility. Tracks like Testament and Roberta Flack (a tribute to the much-sampled jazz and soul vocalist), with its revolving vibes and bubbling, dusty bass, transport the listener to sunnier climes, whilst Sleepy Dinosaur is a stuttering, spitting, coughing track of which Dilla would be proud.
With Lotus’s rich musical heritage, it’s no surprise he’s produced an album of such obvious depth and versatility, demonstrated again on the beautiful closing track Aunties Lock/Infinitum. It’s this track that points the way forward for Flying Lotus now, as a muted foot drum propels the soft looping keys and lullaby vocals of The Long Lost’s Laura Darlington, whilst a stammering hi-hat is lightly shaken over the track, creating a truly spellbinding way to end the record. With some exciting projects in the pipeline and a rumoured 2000 tracks on his hard drive, Flying Lotus is well on his way to mirroring both the critical and commercial success of his Warp peers. Los Angeles, an utterly enthralling record, is up there with the best of their output. Louis Cook
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