flying lotus by Drakh | CC BY-NC

i first heard flying lotus from a motel de moka mixtape a while back – the song was tea leaf dancers and it blew me away. like many, flying lotus reminds me a lot of dilla and madlib, which may have less to do with his specific style (although he is a skilled practitioner off the un-quantized beat) and more to do with his ability to create tracks that evoke an incredible mood/atmosphere and push hip-hop into uncharted territories.

aesthetically, my favorite aspects of flylo’s music are the cold audio artifacts – snaps and crackles that sound thin and filtered – he combines with his incredible low-end. his production is purely organic, which is something that is much more difficult to achieve than one would initially think. his latest solo effort los angeles and subsequent EPs have been phenomenal but i tend to find his remixes to be incredibly engaging in their own right. his remix of radiohead’s reckoner was sublime and, as i talked about a couple months ago, he took lil wayne to a new level.

everyone is saying it – i’m just joining the chorus: flying lotus is the most exciting producer around these days. cool article on him in the new yorker as well.

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