Steven Ellison aka Flying Lotus.
Among the many things you can accuse Flying Lotus of being, boring is not one of them. The experimental Los Angeles producer has spent four albums turning multiple genres into such an original new art form the man born Steven Ellison almost deserves his own genre classification. On You're Dead,
he gets even weirder.
Originally starting life as a progressive jazz-funk record, his fifth album has morphed into something else entirely: a 20-track opus that tries to span the bridge between jazz and hip-hop. That means his multifaceted soundscapes are backed by big name guest spots, like Kendrick Lamar on Never Catch Me's cruisy grooves and Snoop Dogg on Dead Man's Tetris' computerised G-funk.
But this isn't an album you want to listen to in bite sized chunks - You're Dead is designed to be listened to as a whole. If you have the time, it's worth investing in it - it only makes stunningly soulful moments like Coronus, the Terminator and Obligatory Cadence stand out from the crowd even more. There aren't as many transcendent moments as Flying Lotus perhaps thinks he's delivering, and it never quite reaches the heights of 2010's classic Cosmogramma. But this is head-spinning stuff all the same.
