Flying Lotus reaches into the past in order to create something clearly of the future – a hybridized work that challenges others to follow its dazzling blueprint.
Steve Ellison may be all kinds of intellectual, but on Cosmogramma he never loses sight of the less reflective pleasures of his craft.
Flying Lotus‘ third album, Cosmogramma, is a strangely cohesive amalgam of exotic sounds.
Cosmogramma moves without warning from mood to mood, genre to genre, all part of a holistic whole.
Pink Floyd may have invented the space opera, but Cosmogramma, 2010’s first major contender for best electronica album, transcends it to another dimension.
Flying Lotus, much like Yorke, Greenwood & Co., has made a definitive summary of a decade’s worth of advances in electronic music, a release that transcends genre and deserves to become a glorified phenomena by those who experience it.
Cosmogramma is futurist in form, rather than content. Reliving the future's past through a constellation of references to cosmic jazz, psychedelic funk, hip-hop, and techno, the music of Flying Lotus never fixates long enough to crystallize; any groove that spontaneously emerges is quickly subverted, churned up in favor of a creating new maps and new vectors.
On Cosmogramma, this never-ending stream of aural textures sounds effortless, and the enthralling swirl of jazz, drum 'n' bass, dubstep and hip-hop beckons you toward the edge of something damn near cosmic.
Even though the steady presence of featured performances helps beautify Cosmogramma, this is essentially Ellison's crowning achievement. The album is sequenced with a sense of purpose, evidential from the promo being presented as a long continuous track.
Cosmogramma bursts with inventiveness; I've found myself careening around my apartment to sounds I don't recognize as of this Earth. That Lotus takes these vibrant ideas and sets them to pulses that move asses is incredible. Apparently everyone else is bouncing along in agreement.
Flying Lotus' third album is by far his most diverse, loaded with elements of jazz, hip hop, and countless hybrids of electronic music. It's dense, boundless, engaging, and fun.
An ambitious, challenging album from a sonic visionary, proving FlyLo is virtually peerless – perhaps only Brainfeeder labelmate Daedelus can touch him. Not for those who enjoy verse-chorus-verse or four-on-the-floor – but true aesthetes will devour Comsogramma with relish.
The musical legends that guest star here wouldn’t trust Flying Lotus if he didn’t trust himself—and trust is what makes this album work. Cosmogramma stays unpredictable without going too far off course, and uses unconventional sounds to deliver digestible results.
Cosmogramma is futuristic magnum opus that will indubitably be heralded as one of th emost intrepid albums of 2010.
You should stick around and see the vivid pictures Flying Lotus skillfully paints for you as you make your way through the mysterious maze that is Cosmogramma.
Cosmogramma is an instrumental genre-jumping journey for head-bopping intellectuals, and the meditative melodies by vocalists Thundercat, Laura Darlington, and Thom Yorke only add to the experience.
Proclamations of his greatness may be slightly exaggerated, but Cosmogramma certainly adds to a deservedly growing reputation.
Cosmogramma is dense and devotional, Ellison piloting his craft into the fading slipstream of his aunt Alice Coltrane’s cosmic strain of jazz.
My sister: Woah. That's what my mind sounds like.
Me: I wish I could have his mind for 30 seconds just to see how he thinks.
My sister: This doesn't just sound like something he wanted to make. It's an idea he's been thinking about for awhile.
Update:
Every time I listen to this, I feel like I find a new detail I love about the album. Every minuscule detail of this album just feels perfectly arranged to me. I feel like something this magical and detailed is impossible to replicate and I never fail to be blown away each time I hear this. It's definitely my favourite electronic album, but it might as well be in the running for one of my favourite albums of all time.
Probably one of my favourite electronic albums... period. There are ... read more
It’s an amazing album experience that I wished it’d have been a lot better. I’ve seen this album a lot during my time on this site and also because of many YT videos recommending it, and it really peaked my curiosity to hear this so when searching further for this album I was very amassed by my the concept of being a map of the universe, which the music really fitted with the whole theme of listening to a bunch of collection of songs that made you feel like you’re going ... read more
you ever listen to an album only because the cover looks sick af
fr though i loved this album, really crazy and fun. plus again that cover is so damn cool, one of my favorites
Flying Lotus has a unique sound but, for a mysterious reason, I was expecting something completely different. I feel this work is very impersonal like it hasn't aged as it was supposed to.
1 | Clock Catcher 1:12 | 87 |
2 | Pickled! 2:13 | 91 |
3 | Nose Art 1:58 | 87 |
4 | Intro//A Cosmic Drama 1:14 | 88 |
5 | Zodiac Shit 2:44 | 94 |
6 | Computer Face//Pure Being 2:32 | 93 |
7 | ...And the World Laughs With You 2:55 feat. Thom Yorke | 89 |
8 | Arkestry 2:51 | 86 |
9 | MmmHmm 4:14 feat. Thundercat | 92 |
10 | Do the Astral Plane 3:57 | 94 |
11 | Satelllliiiiiiiteee 3:49 | 86 |
12 | German Haircut 1:57 | 83 |
13 | Recoiled 3:36 | 87 |
14 | Dance of the Pseudo Nymph 2:46 | 89 |
15 | Drips//Auntie's Harp 2:10 | 90 |
16 | Table Tennis 3:01 feat. Laura Darlington | 88 |
17 | Galaxy In Janaki 2:27 | 94 |
#2 | / | Resident Advisor |
#3 | / | PopMatters |
#4 | / | Cokemachineglow |
#4 | / | Tiny Mix Tapes |
#5 | / | One Thirty BPM |
#6 | / | Sputnikmusic |
#8 | / | Consequence of Sound |
#10 | / | Prefix |
#12 | / | Treble |
#14 | / | Pitchfork |