"Although it will come as no surprise whatsoever to those who have followed Flying Lotus’s music since his debut on the Los Angeles music scene in 2006, his new album, Until The Quiet Comes, is nothing at all like the one that came before it. The futuristic, offkilter loping beats of 2010’s sci-fi space opera Cosmogramma, which were copied by all and sundry, have been replaced by fluttering, flickering beats that swarm around the listener’s head like gossamer electronic moths.
Futuristic. That’s the right word. When we meet at his manager’s house in the Silver Lake hills in Los Angeles for the interview, I tell Flying Lotus how amazed I am at how incredibly futuristic his new album sounds. Having listened to it in the car on the way over, I was gushing with enthusiasm to meet the 28-year-old beat maestro.
Until The Quiet Comes sounds even more powerfully psychedelic than its genre-hopping, category-resistant predecessor. Its sound stretches and redefines what can be done with electronic beat music, taking the listener on a moody, idiosyncratic journey best served by a late-night spin with the listener strapped in, well and truly stoned to the gills. The first single from the album, already out, sees eccentric earth mother Erykah Badu lend her voice to the tripped out, amorphous “See Thru to U”.
Possessing preternatural rockstar cool, even within the whirlwind of activity – stylists, photographers, videographers, journalists, managers – bustling around him, Steven Ellison aka Flying Lotus is a man with a mission. As it’s one of the hottest days of the summer, today that mission is making some iced sangria. (“Everybody has that one thing they’re really good at making,” he says. “I’m good at making sangria.”) His super-chill chihuahua, Buddy (“he jumped in my car one day and just stayed”), is always by his side."
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