Right.
Where do I even fucking begin?
What is this? Who is this? How is even this possible?
Flying Lotus if you haven’t heard of him, is a Los Angeles based hip-hop producer of sorts. I say sorts, because to confine him to one genre is not right by anyone’s standards. It’s not quite jazz, it’s not quite dubstep and it’s not quite hip-hop – it gracefully skirts the borders of these without being exclusive or feeling in any way whatsoever restrained or limited.
It’s more of an aural collage of a million and one different pieces of cosmic magic, and a pinch of influence from his late aunt and uncle, the jazz legends Alice Coltrane and John Coltrane.
To quote Warp:
When global bass music matriarch Mary Anne Hobbs recently told The Fader “Flying Lotus, for me, is like the Hendrix of his generation” it seemed more then an audacious opinion, and with the arrival of Cosmogramma, it’s revealed as a revelation.
This is no lie.
Cosmogramma tears apart the sinews of everything I expected, exploding in shameless fanfare and all manner of musical experimentation. It is exactly what Flying Lotus intended: a space opera, as well as something perhaps even more important: a beautifully fitting tribute to his late mother.
I could sit here for hours and analyse every track and write a review on each number on the album. But I won’t. And I have two good reasons.
- This is something you need to hear first hand, and form your own opinions over. It might not be your style. I love it, but I can’t speak for you. It does dance glibly on the bleeding edge of experimentalism, and at times it’s hard to keep up with.
- I genuinely can’t find words to describe it.
Nothing has been such an exciting experience for me since Hudson Mohawke’s tantalising Polyfolk Dance EP, which you can rest assured I’ll come back to in the near future. The use of string instrumentation in many of the tracks, along with amazing collaborations with Thom Yorke (Radiohead frontman and Flying Lotus’ so called ‘Astral Brother’, and Laura Darlington (who appeared on the beautiful Infinitum from Flylo’s debut, as well as Unexpected Delight from 1983, a pre-Warp long player, makes it all coherent and close to hand, whilst maintaining a paradoxically ethereal feel, with lofty ascensions and synths taking it all to a higher plane .
For me, everything clicks perfectly. It’s simply beautiful. An outstanding work of art. And what’s better, is that, despite a few minor qualms on my first play through the album, the more I listened, the more I understood – the more the music was holding my hand, walking me to a vantage point where I could fully understand what I was witnessing. And yes I say witnessing, because Cosmogramma is not a unisensory work. Close your eyes, and you will see things, feel things.
I can’t really pick out a standout best track from the album, but ‘Do the Astral Plane‘, ‘ Zodiac Shit‘ and ‘…And The World Laughs With You (Ft. Thom Yorke)’ were the instant hard hitters – the others grew exponentially with each play.
Such a beautiful body of work, and yet, having listened to it, I felt extremely confused, perhaps even sad. Not because of the album being a disappointment, or being bad at all, but for other reasons, dark thoughts started to swamp my consciousness. I started to think:
“Has Flylo just killed the wonky movement single-handedly, by producing a record so good, it renders all other attempts to compete void, thus creating an empty void which no-one other than Flylo can fill?“
“Is Cosmogramma as good as it gets, has Flylo exceeded himself to the extent where matching this, or even attempting to is impossible, meaning that any successive releases will never match up to this? (Think Michael Jackson’s Thriller)“
“Can any other album of 2010 possibly hope to break as many genre boundaries, yet still result in a highly playable finished product?“
“Can 2010 actually conjure up anything better, or is this the year’s fill of talent. Have I got nothing left to live (and listen) for this year?”
I don’t know the answers. That’s what makes this such a bittersweet triumph. A toast then, to what may be 2010′s finest musical offering. Cosmogramma. Flying Lotus.
Fucking respect.
:)
May 12th, 2010 → 18:46
[...] with the tracks she has made with Flying Lotus (most recently on the fantastic Table Tennis from Cosmogramma). Overall this album is cute, lovable, and it wholly fulfills the title’s mission statement. [...]
May 19th, 2010 → 19:15
[...] put, were it not for Cosmogramma, this would be album of the [...]
September 21st, 2010 → 19:43
[...] FLYING LOTUS – COMSOGRAMMA [...]