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Apr 9, 2012Part of its delight is how naturally the disparate parts fit together, but another part is how they add up to phantasmagoria if you let your attention wander (and don't be a tight-ass‑-you should).
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Because in constantly mutating just when you begin to pin it down, drawing everything around in before rearranging atoms before your very eyes, Cosmogramma proves itself time and time again as mind-meltingly boundless as a black hole.
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Dense and obtuse it may be but those who follow this most intense sonic explorer will be rewarded the greatest.
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Cosmogramma is dense and devotional, Ellison piloting his craft into the fading slipstream of his aunt Alice Coltrane's cosmic strain of jazz. Not that it's jazz, exactly. Well, no more than it is techno, dubstep, chiptune, P-funk, IDM and, by no means least, hip-hop.
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Add in a dabbling in the spirit of free jazz and one might expect this album to be a wilfully discordant aural trial. But it turns out to be quite the opposite. The parts may be disparate but they are made to submit to an abiding mood of vivacity and sunniness.
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Cosmogramma is decidedly more, uh, cosmic, than his 2008 "Los Angeles," in its atmospheric spiral away from the beat and toward a more free-flowing collage of instrumentation.
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On Cosmogramma, this never-ending stream of aural textures sounds effortless, and the enthralling swirl of jazz, drum 'n' bass, dubstep and hip-hop beckons you toward the edge of something damn near cosmic.
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At first, it sounds a bit of a mess, and takes serious patience to unpack. But its catchiness does emerge with time, and it cements Ellison's position as one of the few genuinely unpredictable artists at work.
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Proclamations of his greatness may be slightly exaggerated, but Cosmogramma certainly adds to a deservedly growing reputation.
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Warm and inviting, his latest opus occasions swan dives into future soul, funky dubstep ("Dance of the Pseudo Nymph"), Theo Parrish–styled house ("Do the Astral Plane"), and astonishingly, Sun Ra jazz ("Arkestry").
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Flying Lotus, much like Yorke, Greenwood & Co., has made a definitive summary of a decade's worth of advances in electronic music, a release that transcends genre and deserves to become a glorified phenomena by those who experience it.
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Cosmogramma is futurist in form, rather than content. Reliving the future's past through a constellation of references to cosmic jazz, psychedelic funk, hip-hop, and techno, the music of Flying Lotus never fixates long enough to crystallize; any groove that spontaneously emerges is quickly subverted, churned up in favor of a creating new maps and new vectors.
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Flying Lotus has made the strongest album to date with his amazing collection of sounds, beats and instruments; as good as you felt after hearing the sheer brilliance of "Los Angeles."
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Flying Lotus reaches into the past in order to create something clearly of the future – a hybridized work that challenges others to follow its dazzling blueprint.
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Picking us up where the laptop prof's 'Los Angeles' debut dropped us for another nocturnal journey through LA that serves as a moody, widescreen, be-bopping riposte to UK dubstep. Only this time it's a flashier ride.
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There's some info overload, but Ellison is an ace with pacing, and a distracted soulfulness guides the frantic laptop science.
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Cosmogramma is an instrumental genre-jumping journey for head-bopping intellectuals, and the meditative melodies by vocalists Thundercat, Laura Darlington and Thom Yorke only add to the experience.
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Cosmogramma is an intricate, challenging record that fuses his loves-- jazz, hip-hop, videogame sounds, IDM-- into something unique. It's an album in the truest sense.
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Yet, even though the steady presence of featured performances helps beautify Cosmogramma, this is essentially Ellison's crowning achievement. The album is sequenced with a sense of purpose, evidential from the promo being presented as a long continuous track.
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Time will tell if "Cosmogramma" is the most definitive moment of his career, but at this point it seems the realm of electronic music is open for Flying Lotus to be the next big visionary of his genre.
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The surprising achievement of Cosmogramma is how capably it reinterprets that kind of innately communal vibe into private introspection without losing a bit of its energy along the way.
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Under The RadarCosmogramma is futuristic magnum opus that will indubitably be heralded as one of th emost intrepid albums of 2010. [Spring 2010, p.74]
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Cosmogramma bursts with inventiveness; I've found myself careening around my apartment to sounds I don't recognize as of this Earth. That Lotus takes these vibrant ideas and sets them to pulses that move asses is incredible. Apparently everyone else is bouncing along in agreement.
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UncutWoozy, off-track beats blend with video game blips and organic strings, harp and sax, while a cameo from Thom Yorke is woven neatly into this lush, psychedelic fabric. [Jun 2010, p.86]
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Cosmogramma may evade complete comprehension, but Flying Lotus' foreign and colorful arrangements entice even the most casual listener.
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Q MagazineFans of experimetal electronica will be [happy], though Radiohead devotees should exercise caution. [Jun 2010, p.124]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 147 out of 159
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Mixed: 7 out of 159
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Negative: 5 out of 159
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Oct 6, 2012
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Dec 6, 2011
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Jan 21, 2015