Sleepwalking to Sunset

The new Flying Lotus LP will be released on June 10th.  In my reckoning, it couldn’t come soon enough.  For some idea of where he’s coming from musically, here’s the video from one of the best tracks from his Reset EP. 

“Tea Leaf Dancers” provides a compact starting point for what makes Flying Lotus such a great producer and sound sculptor.  Flying Lotus’ sound is very much DJ Screw meets Tricky, with loops that knot in on themselves and a pillowy disorientation that constantly interrupts the forward momentum.  The video doesn’t so much tell a story as it does mirror the sonic mood.  In between sleep and consciousness, breakneck speed and stasis, the video has the effect of producing eye-flickering relaxation.  Okay, that’s probably just a fancy way of saying that it’s like slipping into a k-tunnel.  The unreal color and float-walk transport are narcotic and hypnotic, reproducing the same camera work that captures the light trails in sped up recordings of urban night traffic.  As far as narratives go, sleepwalking to the beach to watch the sunset isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but rendered with such dizzying simplicity and beauty, it doesn’t have to be.

—Terry Sawyer