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In the decade or so since Stephen Ellison published his escape Los Angeles LP, he has established himself as the most influential author of hip-hop, as a maximalist Brian Eno for the age of medical marijuana, whose meteor-storm productions triangulate funk, electronica and various assortments of jazz, and are attached to film projects updates the psychedelic candy for Pink Floyd 's golden age eyes. Flying Lotus beats have a rootstock from west coast varieties (Madlib, Stones Throw Records School, Dr. Dre – Snoop Dogg G-funk axis). The Midwest is also present, with echoes from Detroit innovators such as J Dilla and Carl Craig. Like many of his ancestors, you have the impression that Ellison has studied P-Funk records such as Talmudic scholars make Torah scrolls.
We could think of Flamagra like Ellison Apocalypse Now, or The wall – He shows an artist at the height of his power, able to realize his most delirious imaginations, delivering a sprawling masterpiece on the edge of the overbid. The actors are filled: Herbie Hancock, icon of jazz fusion, and George Clinton, the master of P-Funk, represent for the old school; Solange, Tierra Whack, Anderson Paak and Ishmael Butler from Shabazz Palaces offer different shades of this new. "Heroes" opens the scenery with a jazz-cum-ASMR cosmic incantation, choruses that float in the mix, like air sails, and a backdrop that could be the sound of a bonfire, a chorus bubbling bangs, or a combination of these.
There are a lot of ideas here, and a lot of notes – a plus or minus depending on your state of mind – distributed on 27 tracks, almost half of them in less than two minutes. Some of these short sketches offer the most delicious moments: the squishy synth-funk of "Pilgrim Side Eye" with Hancock; "Andromeda", with Thundercat, long-time partner at Ellison; and the big thank you "Thank You Malcolm", a tribute to the friend of Ellison, Mac Miller, (just like the elegiac "Find Your Own Way Home").
Elsewhere, "Takashi" is a very active funk robot, composed of both Bootsy, Prince and Mahavishnu Orchestra. No relation to the song of Talking Heads, "Burning Down The House" presents a salad of George Clinton's words with voices of elves whirring around him. The themes of fire and loss are woven throughout the scenery, unsurprisingly, perhaps by a Californian artist in the late '10s, and inspired in part by a chance encounter with filmmaker / musician David Lynch, who plays the role of narrator in the film noir ish "Fire is coming". Solange describes a fall of grace on the lush "Country of Honey". Things also get dizzying: the most memorable moment of the album occurs on "Yellow Belly", when, after an impressive freestyle of Tierra Whack's very free associations, he launches into a singing of " titties in the face!
But for an artist who treats sound as an infinite playground, Ellison's default mode is dark. A song simply titled "Debbie Is Depressed". And on "Black Balloons Reprise", the new MC Denzel Curry spits rhymes on an upcoming apocalypse, while we will apparently see the "real talk". It rhymes with a line that could Ellison's maxim as well: "Until that moment, I break that shit until my coffin closes.
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