Left-field cameos fuel Flying Lotus’ latest odyssey, Flamagra
Every Flying Lotus album unfolds as a hero’s journey into the great unknown. On Los Angeles, the producer’s 2008 breakthrough, he scoured his hometown’s electronic underground through a sci-fi lens. Then came the space jazz of Cosmogramma, the electro-folk meditation on dreams that was Until The Quiet Comes, and You’re Dead!. Cracking the Billboard albums chart at No. 19, that last one effectively introduced him to a mainstream audience, thanks in part to the excellent Kendrick Lamar single “Never Catch Me,” and effortlessly merged G-funk and slap bass with a futurist update of the Egyptian Book Of The Dead.
The theme of his new Flamagra is a cleansing eternal fire. In practice, it evokes his previous odysseys: the Afrocentric fusion of Roy Ayers and Andy Bey; the spiritual jazz of his late aunt, Alice Coltrane; Los Angeles’ electronic and hip-hop movement; and the funk, folk, and film soundtrack traditions that guide so much of his city’s scene. (We’re still waiting on the soundtrack to Kuso, his controversial 2017 live-action film inspired by Japan’s profanely debauched guro underground.) In the past, he has submerged these influences into an utterly unique sound. We’ve grown to expect the jittering 8-bit melodies, clipped beat-loop edits, and airy string-laden washes that define his cinematic vistas. But on Flamagra, the sonic signature that arguably made Flying Lotus the most innovative electronic producer of his era has evolved into a mere motor for his role as a postmillennial bandleader and a conductor of voices.
