Flamagra (studio album) by Flying Lotus

Not quite my kind of music. Also, I think is too long, with less variety.

Got about half way through and couldn't manage any more. Not my thing

From LedZep 06/09/2019 17:15

Suffers from far too long running time. I don't think any of the songs are particularly bad, but at 1h 7min I expected the album to be much more unpredictable. In the end it's a decent but fairly standard FlyLo record with few highlights (Takeshi, Black Balloons Reprise, Land of Honey...), nothing I'll listen to regularly.

Since he became famous in 2008 with his second record "Los Angeles", Flying Lotus has become the ambassador of the current glitch-hop and electronic jazz scene. It make other classic albums like "Cosmogramma" in 2010, "Until The Quiet Comes" in 2012 and "You're Dead!" in 2014 so that everyone is amazed by his fabulous production work. FlyLo is my favorite electronic producer of all time, he has nothing to prove, until this year he returns with "Flamagra" which follows a five-year absence. FlyLo's musical universe is still intact through these 27 tracks for 67 minutes of music, from jazz-funk to unbridled glitch-hop and experimental soulful psychedelic hip-hop. After exploring the theme of death and dreams, "Flamagra" focuses on the theme of fire and how to maintain the flame in any situation. Inspired by David Lynch who contributes to this album, Alice Coltrane's grand-nephew maintains this flame through this new journey. The sixth studio album of the Californian producer proves that he has lost none of his touch that has made him one of the most intriguing producers of the electronic jazz-funk scene of the moment.

8/10

Best track: "Black Balloons Reprise (feat. Denzel Curry)"

From LebowskiRams 05/29/2019 21:33

eh

not bad, not memorable

As a massive flylo fan, I'm a bit disappointed. This is the first time I found myself getting bored with some of his music. Still there are some excellent tracks that save it.

From lleon79 05/24/2019 13:55

I think this album needs to be judged as that, as an album. A coherent work from start to finish. Even if some individual songs in here aren't the "greatest", one needs to look at the big picture. The flow and pacing of Flamagra is extremely well done. There's never a dull moment, and it keeps you hooked every step of the way. It's an album that begs to be played in its entirety every single time. I also dig the idea that this is an instrumental album with singing breaks here and there. What an amazing project overall. One of the year's bests.

That being said...

Favorite tracks: "Heroes", "More", "Black Balloons Reprise", "Fire Is Coming", "The Climb", "Land of Honey"

Stupidly good. It's almost laughable at times due to how many ideas Steven has. Never feeling intrusive or over-elaborate, he manages to create a double album for the ages, with some incredible features, notably Tierra Whack, George Clinton, Anderson .Paak and Denzel Curry.

There's no doubt in my mind that this will be my album of the year. And I've made a point of ignoring all critics up until now so will be interested to find out their views.

95/100

Best Tracks: Heroes, Post Requisite, More, Burning Down The House, Takashi, All Spies, Yellow Belly, Black Balloons Reprise, Fire Is Coming, Remind U, The Climb, Pygmy, 9 Carrots

Worst Track: Heroes in a Half Shell