CD Reviews

Flying Lotus | Until The Quiet Comes

Warp Records (2012)

By RYAN REED | October 3, 2012

3.0 Stars

On Until the Quiet Comes, his reliably solid fourth studio album, Flying Lotus's Steven Ellison continues to bang out mind-bending electro-donut jams for folks who don't quite "get" electronic music. Barring a few new shades and textures, though, Until the Quiet Comes is more or less the same album as 2010's Cosmogramma: another trippy-ass blend of jazz keys, melted synth buzz, and clattering beats. And during the album's more muted second half — featuring atmospheric palette-cleansers like "The Nightcaller" and "Electric Candyman" (in which a cameo by Thom Yorke slips by virtually unnoticed) — a mild tedium sets in, along with the uneasy feeling that we've heard all these ideas before. But Ellison excels everywhere else, keeping the beats brisk and the instrumentation organic and lively: "All In" unfurls orgasmic layers of synths and bass; the snaking coils of percussion on "Heave(n)" are downright chilling. At his best, dude's a genre of one.

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Topics: CD Reviews , Music, Thom Yorke, review, More

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