Flying Lotus
Cosmogramma
Warp Records, 2010
Daniel’s Thought
Cosmogramma is like a bottled up piece of experimental exploration that takes you to the outer reaches of space. It spoils even the most ignorant listener with grossly engaging fills of jazz, hip-hop and electronic trance, all while remaining stunningly composed. Bordering as one big forty-five minute epic, Cosmogramma never at one point can be picked apart; it stands more as a fusion of swirling sound that takes you to the highest musical stage, and then slowly lets you drift down to catch your breath.
Opening track “Clock Catcher” bleeps and bloops through a cavalcade of electronic tumbling and strings that are plucked right out of the instruments. Its rattles and quick-hitting percussion could stand as either video game fodder or the soundtrack to a futuristic horror flick, and with this experimentation the imagery comparisons are endless. “Computer Face/ /Pure Being” relies on a mid-song synth breakdown that imposes its will over the hundreds of other sounds glistening on the track, and as if accompanying Rogue Squadron as they take down the Death Star, this space-like cut sends vectors of sound all over the place like a tumbling X-Wing. The Thom Yorke assisted track “…And The World Laughs With You” dances with pulsating hums and interjecting high-pitched vocal samples, while the percussion skips on a trip-hop ride into the mind of FlyLo. “Zodiac Shit” takes a pretty easy-going hip-hop approach and spreads itself like it’s accompanying the video game Galaga, as elements of jazz-fusion and strings drive the theme forward. “Recoiled” is smothered with jazz drumming and saxophone swells to start, but as the song progresses, FlyLo flips the switch and turns it into a jaunting slow African jam that’s eventually engulfed in a harrowing synth overlay.
Cosmogramma is the epitome of positive experimentation. Based mainly on electronic tunes that replicate futuristic sci-fi imagery, Flying Lotus is able to incorporate elements of hip-hop, jazz, funk and trance in-between to create a pure masterpiece.
Bonus Cut 