Review: Flying Lotus 'Cosmogramma' – Warp - 10.0
Born Steven Ellison, the nephew of Alice Coltrane, Ellison grew up listening to rock, classical and jazz. But it was West Coast gangsta rap a la Death Row Records that entranced him with super-melodic funky shit. Over the past five years, Lotus has released two LPs, a handful of EPs and a catalog of singles, and remixes. His remix of Radiohead’s “Reckoner” won him an audience with the leading act. Late night cartoon block Adult Swim uses his instrumentals between cartoons – injecting Lotus’ fractured beats into the dozing subconscious of millions. When Thom Yorke tapped Lotus to open his string of solo dates this Spring, interest in Cosmogramma grew exponentially.
Lotus reportedly road tests his concoctions by driving around, smoking weed and auditing his experiments at full volume. Consequently, more than anything, Cosmogramma has some serious knock. There’s a reason dubstep kids embrace his deep, mid-tempo basslines. He effortlessly cruises at the speed of Dre. But the U.S.S. Lotus can also jump to warp.
The album opens with 8-bit bleeps and harpist Rebekah Raff, plus shakers over high-speed tape rewinding. The next 42 minutes inundates the ears with samples foreign and familiar: whacked out organs and violins, drum machine beats braided in 1/8th notes of human breath; little gasps, right on beat. Solid waves of bass hit 10 on the Richter scale. FUBAR space jazz stews in the pops and hisses of decaying tape. At any minute, a disco ball could drop and and now you’re two-stepping, clapping your hands to rhythms no hands can play. Thom Yorke guests in a ghostly, heavily processed segment, like a b-side from The Eraser. Laura Darlington writes and sings gorgeously, and her “Table Tennis” segment uses musique concrete samples of the indoor sport. Ravi Coltrane plays the saxophone on “German Haircut”.
Flying Lotus, Cosmogramma, and the L.A. scene that birthed it – which includes Dublab.com radio, and cohorts like producer Daedelus – has an influence widely disproportionate to their income, so far. That’s about to change, and it couldn’t happen to more talented, dedicated, dilligent people.
