Flying Lotus - "Reset EP"

Flying Lotus - Massage Situation (WARP 2007)

Flying Lotus – Reset EP / WARP

One genre all of us Audiversitarians can get down with when it’s done right is left-field instrumental hip-hop. We are all pretty mellow dudes, and there is nothing quite like sitting back, dropping the needle and spacing out to a few laid-back head-nodding grooves to unwind after a chaotic day. With that in mind, it makes much more sense that Steven Ellison, aka L.A. based producer Flying Lotus, has already popped up here on the site at least three times in the last year despite having only one official release to his name. Pair that with the fact that we keep dropping descriptions like “visionary”, “quickly-rising” and “a galaxy full of potential”, and you better believe that when his first EP for electronica pioneers WARP arrived at our door, eyes were widened around the room.

After gaining recognition for crafting some of the dopest beats that have soundtracked those text-based interludes on Adult Swim, Ellison was introduced to the underground world as Flying Lotus with his strong Plug Research debut, 1983. Defining a synthy beat-driven sound existing somewhere between the realms of the late Jay Dee, the earthy and sparse jazz-hop of Ammon Contact, the quirky electronic experiments of Daedelus, and the spiraling space-funk of Sa Ra, it is no question that Ellison is whole-heartedly a producer in debt to his Los Angeles home scene. His nocturnal grooves swirl, shimmy and lull, maybe too laid back for most clubs, but just perfect for a late night chill-out session. It is a sexy sound that is the unlikely but still recognizable evolution of his great-aunt Alice Coltrane (who he actually bounced musical ideas off of before her untimely passing): forward-thinking, textural and transcendent.

Established now as an upcoming underground producer, Ellison drops his WARP debut for an international audience. Strategically called the Reset EP to symbolizes the fresh slate that comes with a new label, Lotus offers up six tracks in eighteen minutes not so much completely re-imagining his sound, but focusing it in. 1983 was distinctively Brazilian-derived, perhaps an influence produced by hanging with the Dublab crowd (Daedelus actually remixed a track at the tail-end of the album), but Reset keeps it more American urban. His tracks remain super saturated though with silky synths cooing softly and the fractured beats buried deep in the wet mix.

Brighton-based singer/songwriter Andreya Triana provides sultry soul vocals for the opening cut, “Tea Leaf Dancers”. Waves of synths cascade softly below the simply syncopated beat; it’s a slightly twitchy track that the Sa Ra Creative Partners would have sex-upped to death, but Ellison spins into a space-lounge groove thanks to Triana’s coffeehouse vocal chops. “Vegas Collie” heads in the opposite direction, reminding us with its playful blown-out snare beat why Lotus was initially signed to Plug Research, while “Massage Situation” teams both sides of the spectrum for a sound reminiscent of One Word Extinguisher-era Prefuse 73. “Spicy Sammich” brings it back to the 1983 style of faintly Brazilian-derived electro-hop, and the aptly titled “Dance Floor Stalker” slinks and haunts with micro-techno affinity.

I am glad WARP snatched up Ellison, especially with the barrage of non-electronica-based artists they have been releasing recently. It harks back to the early aughts when Aphex Twin, Plaid, Boards of Canada and Prefuse 73 were their moneymakers rather than Grizzly Bear and Maximo Park. While I have no evidence of it, I would imagine a proper Flying Lotus full-length released by WARP will be in the near future. When that inevitability drops, we’ll have to stop using terms like “potential” for phrases like “the next phase of instrumental hip-hop has arrived.”