Chris Daly wants to be Finn.
If you’re looking for a show that somehow combines the wonder of navigating through the travails of tween-dom with evil snails, hipster bears and talking candy canes, Adventure Time clearly is for you. The criminally slept on show has been a favorite of mine since it started a couple of years ago, but I really haven’t found cause to write about it here. The show chronicles the adventures of a boy and his dog in a post-apocalyptic world largely inhabited by sentient candy, which is great for blunted viewing, but not necessarily the best fodder for a hip-hop-centric music blog. I thought I had a pretty good shot with “Belly of the Beast” back in season two, wherein a rave takes place in a monster’s stomach, but Jeff thought the bear DJ was spinning weak house, so I didn’t push the issue. Now that I’ve got a co-sign from Flying Lotus, the iron is about as hot as it’s going to get.
For this past week’s episode, “A Glitch is a Glitch,” FlyLo provided the semi-titular “About that time/a glitch is a glitch,” an 8-bit romp that, as the name implies, goes seriously on the glitch tip. Having produced a number of bumps for Adult Swim, aka Steven Ellison is no stranger to soundtracking cartoon endeavors, but, to my knowledge, this is the first time he’s made music specifically for an actual show (as opposed to for the overall channel). The episode itself is amongst the oddest yet, chronicling the evil Ice King’s attempt via a computer virus to erase everyone in the universe except for himself and Princess Bubblegum (one of the most positive, female role models currently on air) so he can have a date promised to him for being “the last man on earth.” The animation goes from its usual hand-drawn style to a very rudimentary computer graphic one, but that’s the kind of thing that happens in the magical land of Ooo (where the show takes place). As the world regresses, the music follows suit, and FL’s glitch trip is the perfect compliment. It doesn’t get much more mathematical than that.
