Brian Josephs spent the weekend listening to Purple Haze on Lenox Ave. Doesn’t feel all that different.
Here’s a bit of a life hack: There’s a chance you’ll come across some epiphanies gazing at subjects you actively or intentionally avoided. Like death — that thing you’re inching toward as you’re reading these words. It’s something the normally brilliant producer Flying Lotus has had to contend with. He’s lost his parents, family members, friends and so much that he, “might be an authority on the fucking subject.”
So, as would make sense with something that’s an unfortunate constant, FlyLo starts to give death a quizzical stare. You’re Dead is shaping up to be the sound of him examining its possibilities — and they’re compelling. Kendrick Lamar’s technically impressive verse on “Never Catch Me” is also transformative over the wild jazz-fusion and before the kaleidoscopic coda. Alone in a misty abyss, FlyLo taps into something more sublime on the beautifully done “Coronus, The Terminator.”
In less than three minutes, Flying Lotus multiplies intimacy and gravity within Until The Quiet Come’s silky nocturne for a jam that’s immediately satisfying in addition to being somewhat of a sonic epiphany. That bass line — which comes with the soothing powers of a lullaby — strolls along in a naturalistic harmony, as if it represents the realization that life’s beauty and death’s finality aren’t two opposing ends, but rather connected phases within a larger universe. And whether you want to trace the choral chanting to Sun Ra’s eccentricities or decades-old gospel, there’s no denying that this is haunting. It’s the conjuring of ghosts and ghouls from past and present.
Even if considering its dark context is overthinking it, at the very least, “Coronus, The Terminator” is an example of a Flying Lotus song becoming an event when he’s utilizing his potential.
