Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma (Warp)

Man do you have to have a certain taste to enjoy the experimentation of Flying Lotus (Steven Ellison). He is a pure mixer. Taking the most obscure, forgotten and mediocre records and mixes them into a brilliant mass of electronic sounds. When he talked to Pitchfork writers over the summer of 2009 he said, "I'm finally getting to the point where I can make the kind of records... that I wanted to make when I was younger, things that I dreamed about making." He is indeed right. His sound on his first two LPs was a bit immature and he was really trying to get his sound. But now on his third album, Cosmogramma, his sound has become his own.

As I mentioned, the one man machine of Steven Ellison or Flying Lotus is an experimental hip-hop sampler. The music he puts together is exciting, hard to listen to and just plain bizzare. But, truly if you get through all the noise of obscurity you will begin to see the true nature of his influence and see the different elements he truly puts into his music, like "Table Tennis(Ft. Laura Darlington)" actually has sounds of ping pongs and the enchanting singing of Darlington. He incorporate jazz influences ("Arkestry"), orchestrations ("Do the Astral Plane") and other very notable genres. It truly doesn't take long to soak in the influence, maybe two to three listens.

Cosmogramma is kind of set up in sort of different suites. The first three tracks sample extremely fast and heavy bass that bounces all over the place ("Clock Catcher", "Pickled", "Nose Art"). Then following the very fast suite, he goe sinto a very spacey and ambient feel ("Intro/A Cosmic Drama", "Zodiac S**t", "Computer Face/Pure Being", "...And the World Laughed With You Ft. Thom York"). And after that he goes into my very favorite part of the album with the avant-garde jazz influence ("Arkestry", Mmmhmmm ft. Thundercat", "Do the Astral Plain", and if you didn't know Steven Ellison's great grandmother is Alice Coltrane the very crafty avant-garde jazz player and wife of the jazzy saxophone goliath John Coltrane. The last songs of the album remaining mixes all these elements together and give the perfect perspective Flying Lotus sound; glitched video game noises, jazz and hip-hop.

There isn't really a distinct track on Cosmogramma all the songs seem to drip together like wax flowing down a candle and connecting with another candle's wax. It so smooth and the tracks play off of each other. The album features some very notable artist including Radiohead's frontman Thom Yorke and Laura Darlington who is a singer on the obscure psychedelic band The Long Lost.

Cosmogramma is probably my favorite album of the year as of June, but there are still seven more good months of music. If you're wanting a real easy listen, stay away from this album. It's very experimental, but so very good and very rewarding. Give it time if you do decide to take a dive into experimental hip-hop sampling. I hated Flying Lotus at first, but once I gave him more of a chance, it was highly rewarding.

Overall: 8.7/10

Track Listing:

1. Clock Catcher - 8.5
2. Pickled - 9.0
3. Nose Art - 9.0
4. Intro/A Cosmic Drama - 9.0 *
5. Zodiac S**t - 9.0 *
6. Computer Face/Pure Being - 8.5
7. ...And the World Laughed At You (Ft. Thom Yorke) - 8.5
8. Arkestry - 9.5 *
9. Mmmhmm (Ft. Thundercat) - 9.0 *
10. Do the Astral Plane - 9.5 *
11. Satelllliiiiteee - 7.5
12. German Haircut - 8.5
13. Recoiled - 9.0 *
14. Dance of the Pseudo Nympth - 8.5
15. Dips/Auntie's Harp - 8.5
16. Table Tennis (Ft. Laura Darlington) - 9.0
17. Galaxy In Janaki - 8.5

* - Notable Track

Sample:

"Arkestry"