FLYING LOTUS
L.A EP 1×3
WAP247
Warp Records 2008
06 Tracks. 14mins25secs
Format: 12″/Digital

Flying Lotus follows the release of his excellent second album, Los Angeles, a few weeks ago with a series of three limited EPs, each released at just 2,000 copies on 12″. First to materialise is L.A. EP 1×3, which features Sleepy Dinosaur and Robert Flack, taken from Los Angeles, and four brand new tracks.

Kicking off the EP, the glitchy and short Sleepy Dinosaur is quickly followed by the even shorter (just over one minute forty) Rickshaw which despite its rather compact form manages to dispense quite a devastating groove, only lightened up by light oriental flavours. Pushing to the full the concept of miniature epics he applied on his album, Steven Ellison doesn’t waste any time setting up to mood of a track. Instead, he goes straight to the point, establishes his grooves, places his melodies, sprinkles them with playful details and wraps it all up before they go stale. He applies these principles with extreme grace on Rickshaw and on the crunchy Paper Crane Gang, which consists primarily of a distant hazy soundscape upon which fizzy glitches are intertwined with a beat as crisp as a February’s morning.

On My Chippy, Ellison’s playfulness becomes a bit obsessive. Sounding like an old school video game stuck between levels, this track has the subtlety of a heavy artillery pounding, but below the layers of psychotic bleeps, the same Fly Lo deep rooted groove that can be found throughout Los Angeles vibrates, while on the closing Interference, Flying Lotus is found in rather subdued and serene mood as he crafts a much more laid back and disarmingly simple beat, reminiscent in part of early Massive Attack.

This first of three companion releases to Flying Lotus’s stellar Los Angeles album continues to affirm Ellison as one of today’s sharpest musicians around.

4.3/5

Flying Lotus | Warp Records
Buy: 12″ | iTunes