FlyLo
Posted by Feya Waters in Music / Entertainment, NextUP Monday, 8 February 2010 00:21 No Comments
I recently entered the world of electronic music and while I’m favoring dub at the moment, a straight indie beat-artist that has repeatedly caught my attention is Flying Lotus.
Born Steven Ellison, Flying Lotus, aka FlyLo has created a following from his home base in L.A. to Europe with a refreshing modern sound that always feels like a journey to another place. He tends to shy away from lyricism in favor of an instrumental soundscape that is at once urban and ethereal. His goal is to capture an era of time and a frame of mind that connects the listener to his music. As he says, “I think if you’re gonna make an album it should be something that people can sit and think about…where it can be that engaging experience.” This might be the influence of his great-aunt Alice Coltrane, who’s strong spirituality and musical genius had a great impact on his own music.
Cosmogramma, FlyLo’s third full album will be released in March, it will follow his debut 1983, and his sophomore full-length, Los Angeles. Flying Lotus has an ongoing list of EPs, beat mixes and compilations and has gained a new level of recognition after Cartoon Network’s: Adult Swim used several Flying Lotus tracks for promos.
Currently, my favorite FlyLo track is Tea Leaf Dancers from 1983. It’s has a moody, minor key melody and a lovely vocal layed over a soft beat; the kind of song I like to wake up to in the morning. Flying Lotus tracks are like their own private soundtracks to life’s intricate and nuanced moments, some I’ve had and some I can only dream of.
Flying Lotus considers himself apart of the “Nintendo Generation” and his music is greatly influenced by it. Referring to his instrumentals he says, “I’m used to hearing bleeps and all those things in whatever it is I do… It’s a comforting sound to some people.” FlyLo’s sound revisits the easy-going playfulness of childhood but still manages to create a polished mature sound, using the skeletal videogame soundtracks of the 80s as a springboard into wordless soundscapes that are sometimes trance-like and sometimes rock a club full of party people.
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