Until the Quiet Comes
Year: 2012
Format: Digital
Grade: B-
The fourth LP from Steven "Flying Lotus" Ellison, Until the Quiet Comes, is a fractured form of intelligent dance music that leans toward nu-jazz and trip hop.
The first 13 minutes feel like a warm up for everything else, priming the listener for where the record is headed, making a clear statement that FlyLo is not going to try to make another Cosmogramma.
The beast awakens with "Sultan's Request" and rides through the middle of the record. Flying Lotus said he was inspired by the subconscious and dreams.
While there is a soothing texture to Quiet, there's also a darkness, which is why trip hop feels like an inspiration, too. Large swaths of the impeccably crafted album are pretty, but hide a dark underbelly.
The songs don't transition so much as pass the baton from one to the next like relay race runners. This speaks to the strides FlyLo has made as a producer, but in the early tracks, makes a lot of them indistinguishable from one another.
Still, there's a fierce, uncompromising mood to Quiet. It plays by its own rules and creates its own rules and that's what the best art does.
Tomorrow's entry: Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain
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