Album: Cosmogramma
Artist: Flying Lotus
Born: Winnetka, Los Angeles
Released: May 2010
Genre: Psychedelic Hip Hop
Now more affectionately known as FlyLo, Steven Ellison has released five albums of groundbreaking hip hop as Flying Lotus (up to and including 2014's You're Dead!) and, in the process, developed a sound that is completely his own. Hip Hop and dance music are important elements in Ellison's style, but the free jazz spirit that's part of his cultural DNA (as nephew to jazz pianist Alice Coltrane, herself husband to jazz saxophone legend John Coltrane) is what makes his sound so original. Ravi Coltrane, the jazz saxophonist son of Alice & John and Ellison's cousin, appears on Cosmogramma, lighting up one of the record's best moments, Arkestry. As well as free jazz, another huge influence on Ellison was the work of J Dilla; although Timbaland and Kanye West often get the plaudits as superstar hip hop producers, J Dilla's brilliant collaborations with the likes of De La Soul, Common and Mos Def during the late 90s and noughties were streets ahead. J Dilla released his own masterpiece, Donuts, in 2006 and it's this underground style of hip hop that inspired Ellison so deeply. One of the tracks on Donuts, Lightworks, was released by Flying Lotus as a remix and homage to J Dilla. The same love of strange, off-kilter beats and psychedelic wordplay infuses Flying Lotus' music; even the album title, Cosmogramma, is based on a "mondegreen" (misheard lyric) from Ellison's childhood, meaning "cosmic drama".
Now more affectionately known as FlyLo, Steven Ellison has released five albums of groundbreaking hip hop as Flying Lotus (up to and including 2014's You're Dead!) and, in the process, developed a sound that is completely his own. Hip Hop and dance music are important elements in Ellison's style, but the free jazz spirit that's part of his cultural DNA (as nephew to jazz pianist Alice Coltrane, herself husband to jazz saxophone legend John Coltrane) is what makes his sound so original. Ravi Coltrane, the jazz saxophonist son of Alice & John and Ellison's cousin, appears on Cosmogramma, lighting up one of the record's best moments, Arkestry. As well as free jazz, another huge influence on Ellison was the work of J Dilla; although Timbaland and Kanye West often get the plaudits as superstar hip hop producers, J Dilla's brilliant collaborations with the likes of De La Soul, Common and Mos Def during the late 90s and noughties were streets ahead. J Dilla released his own masterpiece, Donuts, in 2006 and it's this underground style of hip hop that inspired Ellison so deeply. One of the tracks on Donuts, Lightworks, was released by Flying Lotus as a remix and homage to J Dilla. The same love of strange, off-kilter beats and psychedelic wordplay infuses Flying Lotus' music; even the album title, Cosmogramma, is based on a "mondegreen" (misheard lyric) from Ellison's childhood, meaning "cosmic drama".
The video for MmmHmm has echoes of the front cover of Funkadelic's Maggot Brain, and Flying Lotus definitely has the same bonkers, psychedelic approach to his music. Though Cosmogramma has some of the cerebral qualities of jazz, it's a surprisingly accessible album and really fun to listen to. His arrangements are just endlessly inventive, never allowing the listener any time to zone out (I've found that working and listening to Flying Lotus is near impossible). Among a host of collaborators, two key contributors are Thundercat (Stephen Bruner), whose acrobatic bass guitar playing is astounding, and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, whose strings add texture to some of the album's best songs, like Do The Astral Plane. Radiohead's Thom Yorke also appears on ...And the World Laughs With You, although given the way the song is mixed you'd barely notice it was Yorke's voice if you didn't already know he appears on the song. Other highlights on the record are Satelllliiiiiiite and the cosmic disco of Galaxy in Janai. Ellison is a complete original and his work as Flying Lotus continues to make hip hop and jazz relevant in the 21st century.
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