Steven Ellison’s impact on modern music as Flying Lotus over the last two years has become somewhat inescapable; with his debut album proper, ‘Los Angeles,’ pushing him hard into the limelight, whilst simultaneously stirring up concrete fact that this new lackadaisical blend of ‘beats,’ personified by sumptuous musicianship and clunky hip hop drums, had legs way beyond the clubs and mixtapes. Since ‘LA’’s release his music, overtly energetic live show and his extended Brainfeeder label family have truly taken the globe by storm.

‘Cosmogramma’ is the second album from Ellison to appear on Warp Records – his debut release, ‘1983,’ a collection of beat sketches, sits proudly on the Plug Research label’s discogs page – and it marks a definite change of direction. Whilst the innovative percussive textures and rave anthem bass lines are still omni-present, the album seems to bind itself to his idea of a higher plane of composition; as if ‘LA’ proved his ‘beats’ potential and ‘Cosmogramma’ embraces the spiritual, thematic aspects of his Flying Lotus persona. Having gone on record in interviews before the album’s release to address the music makers biting on his California infused ‘sound,’ Ellison has channelled his energy into new and interestingly different directions, defiantly refusing to repeat his previous triumphs.

Still sounding intrinsically him with the awkward hi hat flickers, low light chord progressions and swamped out bass tones the album collects 17 tracks and listless musical phrases. Ranging from the highly-spun-on-radio bump of ‘Computer Face//Pure Being’ to the handclap, vocal delay mania of the oft mused collaboration with Thom Yorke of Radiohead, ‘And The World Laughs With You…,’ to the physical and off the wall use of ping pong balls on ‘Table Tennis,’ Ellison is nothing if not inventive; finding use in the strangest fractions of sound and utilising his odd chord structures.

A little harder to immediately bond with, ‘Cosmogramma’ is infused with a sense of - for lack of a better phrase – jazz; sprawling its instrumental tendrils out from the off, coating the computerized bump and pump opening of ‘Clock Catcher’ in strung harp tones. Working with harp prodigy Rebeka Raff and bass player Thundercat – whose work positively shines on ‘Pickled,’ where he makes traversing the scales of his bass guitar sound as easy as winning a game of Connect 4 against a colour blind ADHD patient – Ellison pays homage to the legacy of his most famous relative, his aunt and jazz harp legend Alice Coltrane, combining with his collaborators to produce tracks both mystical and ethereal, figuratively blending atmosphere with his collaborators’ proven level of instrumentality.

Hating the description of ‘a more mature offering’ as much as the legions of readers who glaze over it every time it’s wheeled out to describe a shift in style such as this, it’s a hard cliché to swallow in terms of using it here, but it’s simply the truth. In places incredibly ostentatious, sometimes a little too ‘jazz improv,’ and yet still managing to hit as hard at times as tracks like ‘Massage Situation’ from his debut Warp EP ‘Reset;’ ‘Cosmogramma’ paints Flying Lotus’ hip hop roots with grandeur giving his stuttering percussion a whole new audience to convince on album closer ‘Galaxy in Janaki.’  It’s a progression in terms of musicality that might well bewilder fans of the beats movement, but it’s a brave and incredibly well produced collection of songs that marks Ellison out as a true experimentalist pushing to do more than just slay a dancefloor.

'Cosmogramma' is out 3rd May on Warp

warp.net // myspace.com/flyinglotus 

Words: Oli Marlow