Flying Lotus

www.flying-lotus.com

A work of bass-driven metaphysics, Flying Lotus’ Los Angeles could have been regarded as a lone dispatch from a distant musical plane. Instead it has struck an ultimately resonant chord with everyone from the indie pack to Massive Attack, soul heads and Portishead, as well as music critics across the globe as well as Radiohead, who tapped Flying Lotus to remix “Reckoner” from In Rainbows.

Of course, the album’s wide appeal isn’t such a surprise. Never pledging allegiance to a single genre or sound, Los Angeles stays true to its name by presenting itself as Lotus’ vision of his hometown, much the way Burial’s equally striking Untrue portrays London. From the opening analog shimmer of “Brainfeeder” to the last echoes of “Infinitum”, the album covers a dizzying amount of musical landscape, but manages to stay amazingly cohesive by anchoring itself with earth quaking percussion. It’s this combination of panoramic sounds and knocking drums that prompted Portishead’s Geoff Barrow to proclaim “For me it’s Public Enemy, Marley Marl, EPMD, Flying Lotus and Madlib. That is pure mad music…”
With praise coming from every direction it would seem easy for Flying Lotus to rest on the strength of his accomplishments, however he’s doing no such thing. In the wake of Los Angeles release, he was hard at work in the lab putting the finishing touches on a series of LA EPs as well as remixes for Stereolab, Blank Blue and the aforementioned Radiohead. LA EP 1X3 reprised a pair of album tracks alongside mind-blowing new jams like “Rickshaw” and “Paper Crane Gang” while LA EP 2X3 sees tracks being remixed by Martyn, Samiyam, Nosaj Thing, Ras G and others. The third EP in the series remains a mystery, but rest assured it will be an excellent prelude to Flying Lotus’ installment in the seminal DJ-Kicks mix series next year.

Quite a busy year to follow the release of one of 2008’s most groundbreaking albums, and that is without even mentioning the groundbreaking Brainfeeder festival held in London in June. Bringing together what Flying Lotus likes to call “the fucking United Nations of big bass music”, the epic rave saw him top a bill that included Kode 9, Gaslamp Killer, Digital Mystikz, Rustie, Hudson Mohawke, Danny Breaks and more. In November, Flying Lotus brings his low-end delegates to his home turf for a two-date Brainfeeder run in Los Angeles and San Francisco, after which the party-smasher with the big smile sets off on a European journey that promises to be anything but sedate. No rest for Flying Lotus it would seem…not as long as there are fresh brains to feast on.