Spectreview: Flying Lotus – Flamagra

-YELLOW-

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Flying Lotus is back with a new album, and really that’s about as much as needs announcing. Steven Ellison has spent over a decade establishing himself as a auteur of electronic music, cramming signature samples into modal jazz workouts in ways that redefined the word “maximalism.” Flamagra is less overtly conceptual than his triumphant trio of ’10s albums, unless you interpret the “fire on the hill” as the continuing spirit of Afrofuturism and a celebration of black music. In that sense, the album is stuffed with collaborations, many of which (excepting his right-hand man Thundercat) are new to the Flying Lotus Cinematic Universe. So stuffed, in fact, that those who aren’t familiar with Ellison’s every-synapse-at-once approach maybe find themselves fatigued even halfway through the album’s 65-minute runtime. Flamagra is an exhausting listen at first, and there arguably aren’t as many instantly memorable pieces overall, but stay with its shifting landscape and a myriad of treasures surface. “Takashi” feels like an AI creating a dance track on the fly; it earns its six minutes by giving itself room to grow and folding into itself over a increasingly breakneck tempo, filling every crevice with rhythmic wonder and Thundercat’s brilliant bass leads. “More” takes the role of “obvious first single featuring a musical heavyweight that comes about about four or five tracks in,” and Anderson .Paak does a fine job fitting his smooth rasp into this qualified banger. Actually, for the most part every rap succeeds in its own terms, from Denzel Curry’s unmitigated fire on “Black Balloons Reprise” to Shabazz Palaces head-tripping “Actually Virtual.” It could use a pruning, as a few pleasant but uninspiring instrumentals could have been cut to refocus the album on these guest turns, but technically it wouldn’t be a FlyLo album without them. More than anything, Flamagra is a testament to Ellison’s unique vision, and as a continuation of that vision it’s wildly successful.

Recommended for train rides at night.