Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mesmerizing and atmospheric instrumental hip-hop, July 9, 2008
I'll admit, my exposure to avant-garde, left field instrumental hip hop is limited to the major players--Dilla and Madlib, among a handful of others. My first exposure to Flying Lotus were the interludes on Adult Swim that he soundtracked, although I didn't know it at the time.
FlyLo makes no attempt to disguise his influences or history. A self described member of "the Nintendo generation," this record is teeming with glitchy blips and beeps that evoke the 8-bit classics, but they're drenched in swirling synth lines and chopped apart beyond recognition. I would like to resist mentioning that he's the grand-nephew of Alice Coltrane, but his clear affinity for jazz arrangements (and relentless defiance of genre restrictions) almost forces my hand, whether it was derived from his relatives or not.
Los Angeles strikes a perfect balance between establishing a consistent (dank) sound, while never growing tiresome. Think London-based dubstep artist Burial with hip-hop leanings and a lot more variation. Colorful synthetic swirls, drum breaks, and vocal samples fall into a cinematic groove on every track, only to be deconstructed again (often in less than three minutes).
This is one of the first standout albums of 2008. Highly recommended.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thematic hip-hop, June 22, 2008
While making a documentary in Paris about his musical relatives, a taxi driver asked Steven Ellison aka Flying Lotus if he and his crew were musicians. He slumped down in his seat, but great aunt Alice Coltrane spoke up: "Yeah, this guy, he's a musician too; he thinks he's a filmmaker, though". After a few listens to Los Angeles (and all of his stellar work, for that matter), you notice that Ellison's music is the perfect mix of both, the album title, his hometown, providing the thematic element (something you'll really notice if you've ever spent time in L.A.) to this extraordinary hypercompressed, claustrophobic mélange of samples, broken rhythms and analog loveliness. You hear spooky, foggy nighttime Malibu surf ("Camel"), experience whiffs of Little India's spices and rhythms ("Melt!"), see red carpet traffic jams ("Golden Diva"), pull down the wrong street at the wrong time ("Riot") and drowsily smile like a tourist in La Brea ("Sleepy Dinosaur").
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
best flying lotus work to date., June 12, 2008
Flying Lotus takes it to another level with this album. I just got done listening to it for the second time in its entirety. If you liked the direction he took with the Reset EP in the Fall of 07, this is sure to please. Buy it for the music and also for the great artwork, the booklet inside is great! This album is also a great reminder that Warp is still capable of releasing great electronic albums.
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