This post is going to be fun. Flying Lotus, or FlyLo for short, is the alias of electronic musician, Steven Ellison. He is by no means your standard producer of electronica, however. He crafts complex tracks that draw from a wide variety of influences. Hip-hop beats, organic instrumentals, floating vocals, and video game sound effects all meld together with fantastic balance to give his music a distinct sound.
Like any good musician, it seems that FlyLo also likes to occasionally indulge in some mind altering activities...
Holy zodiac! That's a trip. The song is from his 2010 album Cosmogramma and is called "Zodiac Shit". His real 'influences' aren't all herbs and pills; he has said that he gets high to enjoy his music, not to make it because he gets distracted and forgetful. No, FlyLo music is much more a product of the environment in which he was raised.
The Los Angeles native has kept close ties to his musical family. His music takes strong inspiration from the lives and works of his aunt and uncle, jazz musicians Alice and John Coltrane. In addition, their son, Ravi, remains an important part in Ellison's creative process. See Ravi and Alice perform here.
Flying Lotus's name might not have mainstream notoriety, but his music does. Anyone that has ever watched Cartoon Network's [adult swim] programming block (as I am right now) should recognize his songs from their witty and snide bumps.
I've been revisiting some of my older posts lately, and I arrived back at my first one. It's a remix of "Little Secrets" by Passion Pit done by a guy named Jaques. Give it a listen. There was a reason I couldn't wait to help spread this track around the Internet; it gives this great vibe of being carefree, fun loving, and just out to have a good time.
Listening to it again, though, did recall my frustration over not being able to figure out where the rap vocals were from. Then, amazingly, a miracle happened. My older, wiser self realized that I should just ASK JAQUES WHERE IT WAS FROM. I put my simple, elegant plan into action and shot him an email. He very courteously and promptly replied and told me it was a cat named Future Kiddd from Pensacola, Florida. Problem solved.
I Googled this dude and most of the hits that returned were for "Passion Pit - Little Secrets (ft. Future Kiddd) (Plus Move Remix)". Well that was useless. I already knew the remix was of "Little Secrets", and I had just found out that it featured Future Kiddd, but what was all this 'Plus Move' noise? I figured it was an old Jaques alias or group name and continued being upset over having learned nothing new. Wahh.
Luckily, I have been known to have more than one good idea per day, which eventually led me to actually listen to the Plus Move track. Within the first two seconds I was rewarded for my lapse in laziness hard work with an epiphany. It's not the same track. Jaques didn't add those vocals to the Passion Pit song, Plus Move did, and Jaques remixed their remix. Whoa.
I found their Facebook page, and that had a link to a Tumblr full of free music. They are comprised of members Future Kiddd and fuZZZy. Yay, triple lettters. I've listened through everything they had on there, and it's pretty solid. They tend to start and end strong, both on tracks and on albums, and their remixes are probably better than their original material, but overall, I'm a fan.
