FLYING LOTUS - Los Angeles

It's a well-established fact by now: hip-hop is finally experiencing its renaissance in full. After years of torpor and mannered oblivion, the genre that triggered one of the most disruptive musical revolutions of the post-war era is returning to the highly creative spirit that marked its birth.
If only two years ago at this time we were mourning the loss of one of the most brilliant producers American studios can remember (J Dilla aka Jay Dee), we are now celebrating the rise of a bright new talent.

Steven Allison, Flying Lotus's real name, was born in California and, as if by some prophetic sign, counts another hugely important musical figure among his family: his great-aunt was none other than Alice Coltrane (wife of the great John and an important jazz musician in her own right, who passed away recently). Known in the States for scoring the animated series "Adult Swim", Allison signed to Plug Research, where in 2006 he released his debut "1983". A year later, having moved to Warp, he put out the EP "Reset" and established himself in the eyes of the hip-hop world as one of the most promising minds around.

"Los Angeles" presents itself as an album in the wake of "Donuts" by the guiding spirit Jay Dee: 17 instrumental tracks averaging around two and a half minutes each, with an immediate feel and a rather dirty-sounding production. Allison's style, though, is different, unique. It's like listening to music from a worn-out vinyl record playing at the bottom of the sea, rough yet liquid and muffled, deep at the same time; a trademark that makes Flying Lotus's sound instantly recognizable.

The tracks are a constant crisscrossing of tendencies, styles and sounds, blending electronics with black music textures and a wholly unique, deeply personal use of samples and synthesizers.
It's an album that succeeds in offering no precise points of reference, instead melding its various souls by pulling them out of their contexts and making them part of a new, singular whole.
You can find echoes of funk with lounge-tinged shades, as well as far more electronic and at times distinctly digital sounds. Then there's the minimal yet extremely effective groove of "Parisian Goldfish", more percussive, Afro-leaning episodes ("Melt!"), flashes of techno-delirium ("GNG BNG"), gentler, more dilated rhythms ("Beginners Falafel"), all the way to a track like "Testament" (the only one with vocals), which veers into trip-hop memories.

The various elements seem to merge into one another seamlessly. Allison seems to absorb music and give it back to us digested into something new, a window onto the sounds and the black music of this early stretch of the new millennium.
It's an album that is itself the product of a decade drawing to a close, one that saw hip-hop mutate into something that on one hand harks back to the days of Afrika Bambaataa, and on the other projects it toward a future that is ever closer and ever more its own.

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28/05/2008