flying lotus: c/d, s/d

Yes it is.

Still really want to like this, but find it so bloody odd to listen to. Asked Graham Sutton re; side-chaining and just blogged his response and my understanding of it in relation to this.

http://sickmouthy.com/2011/03/14/a-brief-history-of-side-chaining/

i completely disagree that flylo does it for loudness reasons. to me it's more of a musical/rhythmic thing...the point isn't just to make sure the kick is super loud, it's also to create some ebb & flow movement in the other parts. in some tracks the groove is constructed around the sidechaining, so it's hard to separate one from the other.

That may be so, but for me it just destroys something like MmmHmm; I can't ride the bassline cos it keeps vanishing, I'm trying to follow it and I'm having it pulled away like jerking a string from a kitten; my brain literally can't keep up and I get a headache. Also, many tracks (especially the first 3 or 4) end up being MEGA loud start-to-finish. I think the grooves would be better if it wasn't sidechained and pumping at me.

Do The Astral Plane would be fucking amazing if I could hear every note on that trumpet and all of the clicks on that percussion track. But they keep vanishing because of the fucking kick.

funny, i find the sidechain compression on cosmogramma to be pretty subtle and non-obvious. just listened to 'do the astral plane', and i don't think the trumpet and most of the high synths are even sidechained to the kick, just bass synth and some of the textural elements.

especially compared to something like this, where the whole idea of the beat is based on the sidechain compression (with a really hard ratio): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXhdEgCqhJo

has Graham heard the FlyLo album and pinpointed those instances as actual side-chaining? to me it just sounds like he's working with a wobbly/queasy-sounding beat, on purpose, but obv i could be wrong (i love it tho)

Graham hadn't heard it, no; I'm just picking bits that I find awkward to listen to and that seem to be suffering. The psychology of listening is an odd thing though; the trumpet in Astral Plane might not be tied to the beat, but the beat's stopping me catching it all.

Cos ultimately you can't prove with a waveform or with writing about a particular technique what the exact technical reason is for not liking a sound or feeling that a song sounds wrong (all a waveform can prove is that something's loud and/or clipped), it's just a way of trying to point at something empirical when explaining so that people understand what you're saying more. I don't record or play music; I just listen, and maybe that means that Jordan and I are going to hear things differently.

Like, I know I had to turn Cosmogramma down to listen to it a minute ago, and I know I just had to turn The Magic Position by Patrick Wolf up to set the treble free and stop it sounding muddy (and that's not a quiet record by any means).

i do think it's something that my ears have acclimated to over time, same with the rhythmic aesthetic of some of this music (which the sidechain compression contributes to).

and yeah, this year i've spent a lot of time at home playing with compressor settings, and that's helped me to be able to better pick out what's going on in other people's music. not to say i never find it distracting, like anything else it can be a great musical tool or it can be used badly/unnecessarily.

The sounds on Cosmogramma are SUPPOSED to move in and out of the mix surely? That's part of the appeal for me.

Oh totally; my point is that to some people it's part of the appeal and to others it's a barrier to the appeal.

Q&A with markers flying lotus re: music he grew up with >> here <<

But this is where it gets embarrassing [laughs]. I was also listening to shit like Korn. And I first started checking out Metallica on their album with all the strings, S&M. Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins, all that. But yeah, girls didn't like that shit. I had trouble meeting girls. No one was trying to talk to me like that.

have to say, a couple of these jonwayne tracks are dope:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rKv4c_RM68
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9QIE2uhiz0

lots of unreleased tracks & remixes: http://soundcloud.com/flyinglotus

I think Cosmogramma is even better than I thought it was last year. (On my unimportant EOY list I put it down lower than I would now, probably partly because I didn't want the top to be dominated by indie media picks.)

most of the tracks on cosmogramma are way too busy.. can't get past the excess

flying lotus lovahs might be interested in the free 2.5 hour mix he put out today, LOVERS MELT 2:

http://www.stonesthrow.com/news/2011/07/flying-lotus-lovers-melt-2-mixtape

hope a tracklist eventually emerges...

^^this mix is amazing, really in-depth brazilian stuff and psychedelic music, just fucking amazingly strung out...some stuff you'd know like marcos valle and lots of stuff i'd never heard. needs to be bigged up more really, i only like a few flying lotus tracks but this is brilliant.

i like a lot of the sketches he's been putting up on soundcloud more than cosmogramma. much less busy/overcooked, more tossed-off brilliance.

don't know about this thundercat record. i get it, it's cool that it sounds like a '70s curio, but there's not much here that i want to come back to.

only heard one song (cover of a george duke song) and it was pretty great.

I really liked the tune that was made into the "Dance Floor Dale" video, but the full-length didn't have anything else like it.

the george duke cover is the best thing on the record. i did think some other tracks might be jaxon-friendly though.

did anyone else listen to that lover's melt mix upthread yet? right up your street in particular, jaxon, i'd say.

what is the last "beat" mix he did?

I thought thundercat just played bass, when I saw him a while ago he was pretty sick on it, didn't know he put out his own shit

he plays bass and sings on it, flylo produces, his brother plays drums, i guess austin peralta is playing most of the keys, etc

I'll check it out

the george duke cover is the fucking bomb!!!

but weren't 4 hero and as one and innerzone orchestra doing this sort of thing 10 years ago?

Link for the The Lovers Melt 2 mixtape expired.

Yeah I wanted to hear that mixtape or see a tracklist for the matter.

Ok you can find it here alongside some hints of 4 or 5 tracks inside.

http://thefoxisblack.com/2011/08/05/flying-lotus-lovers-melt-2/

cant decide about the duke cover. it seems like one of those covers where they think purely by slowing a song down it becomes deeper. which of course is false. the original actually has more emotional depth by being fast.

its not quite like 4hero. no drum n bass breakdown at the end! (heard their version of rotary connection the other day and forgot it wasnt rotary until the drum n bass kicked in mid way).

am really digging this Thundercat album; just in the nick of time too lol

great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3284D6gRH0k

new album leaked

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SuQGfk9Gmgo

Video for Putty Boy Strut by Cyriak.

please tell me he's at least sounding more like rustie than squarepusher these days

i could not get into pattern-grid world at all

this album is quite alright. I don't really remember anything about his other albums other than I enjoyed them at the time so I can't really compare them. I suspect that will be my response to this one a couple years down the road.

Is Rustie the dude who had Seinfeld theme-style slap bass on his album?

nope

u talkin about Thundercat?

mh is correct. "Hover Traps" is the slap bass track

this record is so damn good. it sounds beautiful too, maybe his most hi-fi? or maybe it's just that there aren't as many layers so each sound speaks better.

That makes me very excited indeed.

I used to be all about this dude but I could care less about what he's doing now idk why