flying lotus: c/d, s/d

No, fuck that. Not at all. The Polar Bear record does a lot of (but not all, and it has it's own ambitions too) what this guy tries to do and it sounds amazing and not trad at all.

Caribou manages it.

Not saying he should be like them aesthetically or compositionally, btw - I really like the idea of what he does - just, y'know, drum sounds and space in the mix and clarity. They both do chaotic tumbling distortion and noise that's blissful rather than horrible.

any recommendations on 21st century electronicish stuff that is jazzy but goes WAY more pretty and minimal than most of the stuff I've come across? ie Bill Evans/Miles as ref point rather than Coltrane et al?

The new mndsgn is kinda like that I guess

It gets a lil too simple for me but it's pretty peaceful

http://youtu.be/cwFnZWlVVl4

i prefer him doing fusiony speedfreak jazz to transcendent stuff

Definitely. I like this album and Cosmogramma a lot but UTQC bored the fuck out of me

not quite miles/gil influenced but there was the medeski martin wood album the dropper in 2000 which was basically an organ jazz album engineered like a 90s hip hop record that ive always liked...

*bill, not gil

just, y'know, drum sounds and space in the mix and clarity. They both do chaotic tumbling distortion and noise that's blissful rather than horrible.

You bring this up every couple of years but comparing him to Caribou is revealing. Because Caribou records (especially the new one) sound like a live band playing dance-influenced music, albeit more stiff and rhythmically awkward than that would generally be live. But also it's one of the reasons why 'Sun' sounds so weedy when you hear it in a set with loads of other house music on a big system, in a dancefloor context you need that big sidechained kick sometimes. Good dance producers know how to create space around the kick, Caribou's music has so many sonic elements it sounds lightweight and cluttered at the same time.

Of course, Flying Lotus's music isn't meant for the dancefloor and is entirely intended to be massively brash and have dozens of elements coming at you full on at the same time, part of the whole appeal is the oversaturated nature that repels you so much. But actually the most revealing thing you've posted on this is:

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.

Which is really weird to me because I personally don't find these elements difficult to follow at all, maybe I'm just used to a big kick sound in my music, so I barely even notice it except as an ongoing pulse. But IMO FlyLo's music would lose more than it gained by being mixed in a more conventional or organic way, it'd just be another proggy jazz record, which is fine if you like that sort of thing but it wouldn't be particularly noteworthy in an electronic music context.

Good post !

couldn't read it, there was all this stuff about a kick

Also I listened to Cosmogramma again earlier today and, while the first few tracks are really loud, with every sound right up in your face, it's hardly like the whole album is mixed like that. There's a lot of subtlety in there as well, things moving in and out of the mix. Scik talks about Polar Bear upthread but what I've heard from Polar Bear is recorded as a traditional ensemble with some added electronic elements. You can never fully ascribe intentions to musicians but Flying Lotus clearly doesn't want you to listen in that way, it's meant to be a swirling smoky cloud of sound with things drifting in and out, and at other times an overwhelming swarm of noises coming at you. There's not much in the way of conventional space, but there isn't meant to be, and there doesn't need to be when the TEXTURES are so interesting and constantly changing. Recording it like a Polar Bear album would lose all that.

Yeah, Caribou's always been a bit weedy on the bottom end, until this album at least, and particularly on those first few albums.

Part of the issue is that I don't go out dancing to this music (or any music, really), so it's all about home-listening to me (even if Caribou and FlyLo records aren't really about dancing to, obviously), and my home-listening is atypical to most, and FlyLo records are clearly not made for how I generally listen, even if the aesthetic appeals.

I very much mean the current Polar Bear album, which is very different to their previous records and doesn't really have that 'live band' feel; there are a lot of programmed beats that the drummer plays around, and some tracks that really move into hazy drone territory. It's much more electronic feeling than anything else they've done. That said, it is still jazz first, and it's also quite minimal.

I listened to Cosmogramma yesterday and, after the first couple of red-lined tracks, I did enjoy it much more than I remember doing previously; UTQC really irritated me when I played it on Friday night, though.

I just think he could do what he does better sonically, without having to compromise the vision of what he's doing or the aesthetic he's going for.

Chuckled when I read this, and immediately thought of Scik:

https://twitter.com/flyinglotus/status/521324219423277058

Ha!

actually the fusiony stuff on this reminds me a lot of the jazzier squarepusher records. Really liking it so far.

like esp Music is Rotted One Note

kinda sucks it's like a really watered down version of cosmogramma. this guy really fell off.

Pissed about the Kendrick Lamar guest spot?

worst song on album though

not even sure what that song is doing there. i guess to grab some attention after his disaster last record. he's so far away from cosmogramma right now. inventiveness, cohesion, arrangement, sound, melodies, energy.

"a live band playing dance-influenced music"

most dance music that has ever been created has been played by live bands btw

lol this is the first album of his I've really loved

i really like the hectic jazz fusion parts at the beginning, lukewarm on the more "beats" oriented second half

Same here. The first half is the Flying Lotus I've liked the most so far, because on past records I've mostly felt like he was doing something interesting but constrained by a slightly tired "beats" paradigm.

ok that new video for is very wtf

I feel like the jazzier he gets the least interesting he becomes
― Matt DC

i kinda miss the solo approach of Los Angeles
― festival culture (Jordan)

Yes and yes

i think there is an ongoing snobbery - more in the uk than the us i would say - against jazz fusion that i think is unmerited. im suspicious of people who think its all just 'wanky' or 'noodly'. its like something q magazine readers would say.

also, youre dead is only really about 50% jazz

his transcendental stuff like on cosmogramma i think is all superficial and just window dressing but the stuff on youre dead is really good, if not exactly original, but the originality comes in the editing, not the performance itself

cosmogramma by far his best, brilliant, almost like he didn't do that

this album is not worthy of much attention

thus spake tanuki

stilladvance otm

dont think im going to pay to see this guy live again - three times he's been billed as having a 'full live band', and unless hes really into hiding musicians where no one can see, all he comes with is a laptop. which is fine if you want to hear an ableton set with some occasionally memorable visuals but i didnt pay £35 for a glorified dj set. he is also a pretty boring rapper, if he isnt changing the pitch of his voice. i did like his specs however.

is his dj style still a bunch of stuff kinda mashed together? I haven't been amazed by the mixes I've heard from a few years back.

basically, yeah. all pretty much pitched at a 'party vibe!' level. so none of the jazzier tracks, no real sense of ebb and flow (i know asking for a journey/narrative from mixes is corny, but when done well, its great), which is what i would expect after the latest album. it was just one big smashed together club set (with some dj rashad tracks here and there) where everything seemed to blur into one mush. kode 9s DJ set before the show had some cool tracks, but i dont know if it was him, or his equipment, but he made some serious clunkers (dizzee's sittin her being mixed into footwork sounded terrible).

this is sounding great so far:
https://kutmah.bandcamp.com/album/blk-smr

"coronus, the terminator", wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

and "siren song"!!!!

so good

Found it surprising that this didn't make the top 77 of 2014. Yeah, it doesn't really maintain the breakneck fusion pace of the first couple of tracks but there are still plenty of ideas in the latter half.

he should prob stop tweeting for a while.

https://twitter.com/flyinglotus/status/743485020241698817?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

My art is like a sacred vagina,I'm very selective of who I let smash and prefer it not to be fondled inappropriately

was excited to get free tickets to see him this weekend but then i remembered he’s kinda been acting shitty recently ...

This guy has always been an overrated asshole but I’d feel better having my instincts proven right if he’d ever mattered to more than a few thousand geeks who only discovered IDM in the 200xs

Well, I was disappointed to find out he's such an asshole because I enjoyed his last few albums and I was the type of person who looked down on IDM nerds in the 90s because they were too uptight to dance. So congrats, I guess?

having trouble parsing what you wrote there, tombot

curious though why you think he's always been an asshole?

He's saying he knew Flying Lotus sucked both as a person and musician all along, but would feel more vindicated if his fans were higher up on the coolness totem pole.

i got the first part

second part seems like a parody of the worst impulses of early ILM ... judging music primarily by judging its fans, bad sociology masquerading as music criticism

still curious why you thought he was an asshole all along?

on the topic of judging music primarily by judging its fans, i have it on good authority that he's crossed over with the festival trap crowd (TNGHT fans) so not expecting to see many IDM geeks there, instead expecting lots of bros in tshirts and fluorescent sunglasses