I’ve found that i didn’t need the immersion into Until The Quiet Comes that i go through on the day of writing about an album to know everything that makes it incredible; namely its auteur, LA’s Steven Ellison (more commonly known by his stage name, Flying Lotus.) FlyLo’s music has grown with me and i’ve grown with his music. FlyLo is a contemporary, in every sense of the word and his music straddles the line between music and contemporary art. His finger is on the pulse of all that is modern, trending and seemingly great in music. But he has a way of crafting it to become his own, never towing a line and always remaining unique.

You have to witness the art form that is Flying Lotus’s music. You have to hear it, you have to see it and you have to get a taste for the method to his madness. Once you see this all, you’ll understand how tirelessly FlyLo works to craft his art and create an experience that is unlike any other and a manifestation of his vision.

The first taste we got of Until The Quiet Comes was this short film (think of it as a 3 minute music video) by Kahlil Joseph for the album’s title track and its nothing short of a cinematographic masterpiece:

FlyLo is a master collaborator. He’s one of the few people to work with Thom Yorke, as he did on ‘And the Whole World Laughs With You…’ off of 2010’s Cosmogramma (My #12 Album of 2010). This time around, he features the gorgeous Erykah Badu on ‘See Thru to U’.

He worked with with Director David Lewandowski and actor Elijah Wood for this stunning video for ‘Tiny Tortures’:

The intricate bass loops and Wood’s mystifying expressions are impeccable. And the artist works…he continues to work. This video for ‘Putty Boy Strut’ directed by Cyriak Harris, is a robot’s story:

He’s careful to craft everything precisely the way he envisions it. To work with the right people to visually capture the feel of his sound. This guy is the fucking future. He takes visual and sonic elements that are prevalent, but put his own spin on them. Everything he does is unique and seemingly groundbreaking, but it’s like he’s not even trying. With his ear to ear grin plastered on his face, he keeps cranking out spin-off projects that complement his albums. Wanna know what he does for his live show? Surprise, it’s freaking original as hell too…He’s created an audiovisual arts concept (alongside visual artists Timeboy and Strangeloop) called ‘Layer 3,’ where he’s playing inside of a visual vortex, but you have to see it to believe it. Here’s a doc produced by the Red Bull Music Academy, where he talks about how he likes to “dabble in things that feel magical”:

My friend Dallas always says “Visualize: Manifest.” This is the embodiment of everything Flying Lotus does. Everything is possible for Steven Ellison. Somehow he even had time this year to virally launch a villainous alter-ego named Captain Murphy, in the spirit of notorious hip-hop villains like Quasimoto and Madvillain. He kept his true identity a mystery while garnering over 20,000 Twitter followers, before dropping the Duality EP (stream it or download it for free here) and revealing himself in front of an LA crowd at his first show in late November…

Flying Lotus blows my mind. His ideas have no limitations. He’s a highly creative person and somehow manages to articulate everything that’s on his mind through his music and art. This is the future of music. He’s had his finger on the button for years and it just keeps getting better and better. If the future of not only hip-hop and electronica, but of all music and art is in the hands of Flying Lotus, it’s a world that I want to live in.

#3 Flying Lotus – Until The Quiet Come

Note: Until The Quiet Comes is not on Spotify. I’ve communicated with FlyLo regarding when it’ll be up, and he said “soon bro.” While you wait, feel free to entertain yourselves with the above videos and tracks or check out his website for more cool shit: http://flying-lotus.com