Cosmogramma
Flying Lotus takes a crowbar to musical categories on 2010\'s *Cosmogramma*. Wrenching apart hip-hop, jazz, and IDM, he fashions a ladder to the stars out of the splinters. Building on the psychedelic beat music of his previous releases, he looks to Thundercat\'s wily electric bass and Rebekah Raff\'s gossamer harp to add melody and movement. Thom Yorke even guests on one song. But the album\'s dynamic swirl of color and texture remains a radically democratic affair—a collective attempt to unlock hidden reaches of consciousness.
The L.A. producer's head music, which pulls from jazz, hip-hop, videogame sounds, IDM, and more, is more dense and rewarding than ever.
Flying Lotus—a.k.a. Steven Ellison—accomplishes an unusual feat with Cosmogramma: The king of L.A.’s beat scene sidesteps his own obsolescence before the possibility can even be suggested. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Ellison is pushing his art forward—unlike some of his dubstep contemporaries, he’s never…
For 26-year-old Steve Ellison's deservedly hyped third album, Flying Lotus loosened the reins and set out to make Cosmogramma, which his label, Warp, promoted as a space opera of sorts.
Cosmic by name, cosmic by nature, 'Cosmogramma' packs an almighty load...Descriptions like ‘mind-blowing’ and ‘psychedelic’ have been over-mined to the point where they’ve all but lost their meaning.
Being dubbed the ‘Hendrix of hip-hop’ should be an albatross around Los Angeles resident Flying Lotus’s neck. If anyone can deliver with such weighty comparisons however it’s FlyLo.
Steve Ellison may be all kinds of intellectual, but on Cosmogramma he never loses sight of the less reflective pleasures of his craft.
<p>P-funk, nu-yorica and house all crop up on Flying Lotus's musical tour of the universe, says an impressed <strong>Paul MacInnes</strong></p>