Visionary producer waxes jazz, death, and hip-hop on latest trip
There’s probably a reason why most people don’t like jazz fusion. I grew up with it in a musical household, and even I have to back up off it because of its inherent synth-drenched self-importance. But the newest LP by Steven Ellison, a.k.a. Flying Lotus, You’re Dead!, plays around with the best aspects of this indulgence and brings it into a gorgeously crafted, meditative listening experience, fusing a visionary blend of electronic dreamscapes with acrobatic jazz instrumentation, fire-spitting emcees, and a striking, overarching theme of death and the afterlife.
You’re Dead! opens on a tense, cinematic theme that is disrupted by a wild, detached free jazz section that sets the tone for the album’s dynamic. One of the hip-hop focused tracks, “Never Catch Me,” is a high energy, keyboard and bass-driven fusion track with a brief and excellent Kendrick Lamar verse. It then segues into the bizarre, Martian-beat of “Dead Man’s Tetris”, featuring Snoop Dogg alongside Ellison’s rap alter ego, Captain Murphy. “Turkey Dog Coma” is the album’s jazz apex – an absolutely blazing fusion track featuring Stephen Bruner, a.k.a. Thundercat, on bass.
The record crosses into more sombre territory with “Siren Song,” with Dirty Projectors singer/bassist Angel Deradoorian, and returns again to its straight-up, electric-Miles informed jazz format with “Moment of Hesitation” after a few mellower tracks. Jazz legend Herbie Hancock offers transcendent electric piano riffs alongside Kamasi Washington’s tasteful tenor saxophone in this track, and it showcases Ellison’s subtle touch in blending live and programmed drums and timbres.
Needless to say, the band and features gathered for the album are nothing short of remarkable. What is perhaps most compelling in this, and previous albums is how openly FlyLo’s inspiration is worn on his sleeve, and how distinctive and incredibly unique the final product sounds. In its chaotic, genre-hopping form, there is a tight focus on its theme that provides a listening experience as musically impressive as it is meditative. It clocks in at a lean 38 minutes, with most of the tracks no longer than two or two-and-a-half minutes, and a cohesive, engaging narrative is established in its runtime. This narrative is paramount to its success – forms of hip-hop, jazz, and fusion are used as a musical syntax to reflect on death, the afterlife, and what happens during these intangible experiences. As a whole, it’s a challenging work but an important one; Ellison is truly changing the grammar of electronic music and its storytelling capabilities.
