Album Review: Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes

Flying Lotus
Until The Quiet Comes
Rating: Grrrr

Flying Lotus' breakthrough album Los Angeles is a definitive statement in the beat music genre, which many have copied expertly, but few have matched or surpassed in any way. His follow up Cosmogramma pushed the bar up even farther with his dense mixture of beats and jazz music, that almost felt like a musical wad blowing, leaving me scratching my head as to what he could do next that would take things to the next level. Until The Quiet Comes answers the question by almost taking things two notches back, feeling like the lead up to both his landmark records, but at the same time not feeling dated or a re-tread. There is a calm, measured flow to this record, and a less cluttered feel, as if he went back and took one or two additional elements out so that there is more focus and control. It is by far his easiest record to immediately listen to, lacking the crush of the new that Los Angeles provided, or the intense complexity of Cosmogramma. Not to say that Until The Quiet Comes is a passive record. It is still one of the most intricately plotted and produced records this year, but doesn't make you work as hard for the payoff.

While initially there doesn't seem to be a connective theme to the pieces that make up Until The Quiet Comes, there is a definite arc to the album as a whole. In interviews, he has mentioned that the focus of the record is on dream states and children's lullabies. The beginning of the record definitely has a very druggy, eyelid lowering quality of someone falling into a deep reverie. Tracks like "All In" create a jazzy world of the mind fighting to stay awake but losing to exhaustion, the drifting fog of "Heave(n)," or the hazy twilight of "Getting There" where twinkling keyboards and shuffling beats overwhelm the senses.



Until the full set in of sleep, evoked by the murky and hypnotic "Tiny Tortures," with its jazzy bass and haunting keyboards.



The mid-section of the record almost hitting restless night quality, from the buzzy "Sultan's Request,"



the choppy samples and clapping percussion of "Putty Boy Strut,"



and the lumbering percussion and jazzy instrumentation of the Erykah Badu sung "See Thru To You."



There is still a heavy jazz influences on this record, with most of the bass work done by Brainfeeder label artist Thundercat, who even shows up on vocals for one track, the dreamy "DMT Song."



The back half of the record gets lost in a swirl of dreamy textures and hazy soundscapes, from the delicate Indian influences on "Only If You Wanna,"



the haunting and drowsy "Hunger,"



languid "Phantasm,"



and the drifting haze of "me Yesterday//Corded," which replicates the fitful push and pull back into consciousness.



Until The Quiet Comes is likely to be a polarizing record for Flying Lotus fans because it is not the complex leap into classic territory that Cosmogramma was nor is it the revolutionary beatscapes of Los Angeles. It doesn't have that sort of feel, nor was it supposed to in my opinion. Sometimes you have to scale things back in order to take a greater leap forward in the future. Time will tell within the Flying Lotus canon where this record will lie. It is a pretty amazing record in its own right, and will likely be looked at with a different appreciation later on down the road.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.