teshno

here’s something i did in december 2008 for mixmag. fly lo is still relevant so check him out if you haven’t already…

‘I was ditching history of film classes to make beats. It was kinda then I really started believing in the possibility of this shit.’ Given his success this year, it seems strange that Flying Lotus, aka Steven Ellison, wasn’t always certain this would be his calling. That is, until he moved home to LA.

Following a hot EP in 2007 tuning us into Fly Lo’, and pricking up the ears of the underground hip-hop world, he dropped his second long player, an ode to his hometown of Los Angeles, right at the top of 2008′s ‘Best of’ pile.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever feel like I’ve made it’. So much more to be done,’ says Stephen Ellison of his ascension, despite having also put on one of London’s coolest events this year with his record label, Brainfeeder, in one of the capital’s car parks. He also rocked the Sonar festival, and should have wooed Manchester’s Warehouse Project, but for the recent passing of his mother.

Los Angeles is a filmic, narrative affair which winds through the streets of LA (and is quite different to the songettes he made for grown-up animation, Adult Swim, during a sojourn as segue musician for the Cartoon Network): The analogue crackles and crunchy breaks submerse listeners amongst the almost palpable humidity of a day in Ellison’s hood. His off-time percussion adds intensity and bustle; peppering the organic soundscapes, and twitching the synapses. ‘In these times in particular, I find music to be a very powerful healer for me. That and a bag of weed.’ If this is the cure, we’re after the cause.

A disregard for lyrics and puerile MCs is testament to Fly Lo’s confidence and selective ignorance of what has gone before, and is why he redefines hip-hop. ‘I just want the tunes to mean something. It’s not always for the club; it’s not always gonna be some party shit. I really want this shit to touch people.’

Introducing the uninitiated to this new school laptop technician as ‘a hip-hop Burial’ would be just, owing to their similarly textured, hazy output. And to catch the Lotus live is to be drowned in sounds from each nook of electronica, by a music nerd in his element: he’ll slap the drum machine and tickle his mixers, whilst cutting up the likes of Aphex Twin, Squarepusher or the Wu Tang Clan.

2008 sticks in Ellison’s mind ‘for one of the last things my mother said to me: ‘party like there’s no tomorrow.’’ For us, it was the discovery of someone who is genuinely original, and who is refreshing hip-hop as a result. It was the year of the Lotus.