Freak Scene vs. Flying Lotus

Listening to Flying Lotus’ new album, Until The Quiet Comes, feels like coming up for air. His previous LP, Cosmogramma, was monolithic. Layering dueling sounds on top of each other in an endlessly busy display of talent. It was a difficult record, but once you found your way inside it, it was plenty rewarding. Until The Quiet Comes, on the other hand, is calmer. There’s room to breathe. It moves from free jazz to bass heavy sketches to songs anchored by guest vocalists like Erykah Badu and Thom Yorke. It’s not an easy album by any means, but listening to it, it feels like Flying Lotus’ most personal, internal album. An aural manifestation of what he loves and how he sees the world. Recently, I met up with him to talk about the album, living in LA and the importance of taking a vacation.

This album feels less busy than everything else you’ve done. It wasn’t ever a conscious decision. I just did what was natural. what was happening in the studio. When I make albums, I get inspired by things and then I roll with it. I don’t ever try to tell, Oh it’s going to be this and I’ll only do this. I go through phases where I’m inspired by something—whatever it was this time around…I felt like I was getting more into harmonies and melodies and stuff. That’s something I really wanted to explore, just in my whole musical archive, as far as accessibility and whatnot. I never planned on making an accessible record, and to me it’s not, I feel like I have even more accessible stuff in the archive. Of the 200 tracks I made between the last album and this one, I try to pick out the things that meant something to me.

How do you decide what makes it onto the album? The first thing is emotional context. I can sit and listen to the album and think of all the memories that went into it, and it means something. I feel like that might be why it works. I just try to put out the things I know I’ll listen to later on because I’ll remember the day, whether it’s good or bad. The emotional context helps me to complete the overall picture.

Is the new album meant to capture something specific? All of them are documents of where I’ve been. This one, though, it’s funny because I went back into taking piano lessons and really trying to study and trying to improve my shit. When I start the next one, I’ll probably do the same thing again. go back to school, learn, unlearn things I’ve learned, try and get better. Just try to soak up different inspiration in all art.

Read more: http://www.thefader.com/2012/10/12/freak-scene-flying-lotus/#ixzz297RYMkd8