Send "Flying Lotus " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Does Steven Ellison ever sleep? Most artists would take some time off after releasing a record as all-out, balls-to-the-wall ambitious as this year's dazzling Cosmogramma, his most recent full-length as Flying Lotus. Yet here we are three months later, with a new EP, the seven-track Pattern + Grid World. Between this and Ellison's constant stream of remixes for other artists, it's hard to imagine when he finds time to sleep.Unlike those remixes, which mostly fall between the range of good and competent, Pattern + Grid World sounds fully formed and precisely assembled. That shouldn't be surprising, considering Ellison's growing reputation as an album artist, but the fact that early single "Camera Day" originally made an appearance as the backbeat for Killer Mike's "Swimming" in June hinted that this release might wind up more of an odds-and-ends set. However, Pattern + Grid World feels as much like a complete work as its full-length predecessor, from the engine-revving opener "Clay" to the squelching closer "Physics For Everyone!" And this despite its ultra-short (barely 19 minutes) runtime. Because of its brevity, the EP serves a solid entry point to Flying Lotus' work. Perhaps the only serious complaint that could be lodged against Cosmogramma is that it was daunting-- too dense, complicated, and harsh for casual listeners and first-time beat freaks. This EP, by contrast, feels a bit like Baby's First Brainfeeder: you've got the speed-addled drum'n'bass freakout ("Kill Your Co-Workers"), the off-kilter post-Dilla thumper ("Time Vampires"), and a midsection so swampy that you can practically see the flies hovering above the surface ("Jurassic Notion / M Theory")....full text |
| Tinymixtapes |
| Flying Lotus doesn't belong in this world, or at least not in this particular dimension. His presence lies somewhere between the 13th and 14th dimensions, where the physical laws you and I take for granted are of no importance. I mean, just listen to 1983 (his best), Los Angeles, or his most recent, Cosmogramma (TMT Review). Yet his psychic odysseys still manage to make the drift from his plane to ours, thus proven by his upcoming release on Warp. The EP Pattern + Grid World is set for release on September 21 and features seven new tracks of sheer joy and — with his track record — possibly a hint of terror. If the press release provides any indicator as to what to be expecting, I'd say if Cosmogramma was more of an organic expression of the Flying Lotus sound (string and orchestral arrangements and whatnot), then Pattern + Grid World is more of a mechanical-synth-and-drum-driven effort. 'Nuff said....full text |
| Clatl |
| Steven Ellison's future was written long ago. The great-nephew of jazz legends John and Alice Coltrane, his path to music was always obvious. The compositions he creates as Flying Lotus, however, are anything but. Pattern+Grid World, his new Warp EP, finds him exploring similar bracing textures as on his acclaimed full-lengths, but a greater sense of urgency permeates these 18 short minutes. The songs on Pattern, like the spastic "Kill Your Co-Workers," could be labeled Nintendo-techno-soul. Lotus' hip-hop-oriented Los Angeles concerned itself with negative space, while this year's luminous Cosmogramma moved into the free jazz/drum and bass realm. This EP is an extension of that record's glitchy chaos, but these songs feel less complete; they feel, in fact, more like Lotus' epigrammatic Adult Swim bumps than fully formed songs. Still, it's a hypnotic, engrossing listen, if not quite a magnum opus. And, given his track record, Ellison's bound to have one of those coming. (3 out of 5 stars)...full text |
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