Drop Everything: Flying Lotus Just Released His First Solo Music In Five Years
And Little Dragon is back for the ride.
Flying Lotus has just dropped a double single off Flamagra, his first album in five years — and judging by the sounds of it, we’re in for a wild ride.
FlyLo — real name Steven Ellison — announced his sixth album last week by releasing, of all things, a music video for ‘Fire Is Coming’, an eerie interlude featuring David Lynch.
Consider it a slight misdirect, as his double singles ‘Spontaneous’ and ‘Takashi’ establish that Flamagra will be filled with plenty of the wonky, experimental and funk-driven beats the producer’s known for. ‘Spontaneous’, the lead single, even features FlyLo’s good friend Yukimi Nagano of Little Dragon on vocals: it’s a welcome return.
Then again, Ellison’s been busy in the past few years.
While 2014’s You’re Dead was the last full FlyLo record we heard, he’s popped up all over the place in the past few years. To name a few: he featured prevalently on Kendrick Lamar‘s To Pimp A Butterfly, produced Thundercat’s 2017 album Drunk, and directed his first feature length film, Kuso, for which he released a standalone song in 2017, ‘Post Requisite’. So yes, we’ve heard some new FlyLo music recently, but that doesn’t really count.
The 27-track Flamagra is out in just less than a month, on May 24. In addition to Lynch and Little Dragon, it features Anderson .Paak, George Clinton, Tierra Whack, Denzel Curry, Thundercat, Solange, Toro Y Moi, Herbie Hancock and more.
Not mentioned in the track list but FLAMAGRA has some of my favorite musicians playing alllllll over it. ?@Thundercat @MiguelAtwdFrgsn @BrandonColeKeys @herbiehancock @drummaboiblue1 @nikalotta @robertglasper @dennishammkeys @deantoniparks
— FLYLO (@flyinglotus) April 23, 2019
Listen to Flamagra‘s three-released tracks below.
Feature photo by Renata Raksha