Flying Lotus - You're Dead (Album Review)

Before You’re Dead, “cohesive” would’ve been one of the last adjectives one would use to describe a Flying Lotus release. Across his last four albums, numerous extracurricular EP’s, mixes and collaborations, Brainfeeder’s chieftain tends to conjure up perceptions of experimental chaos, built from an otherworldly understanding of jazz, hip-hop, astral ambience and disjointed drum samples all woven together by a mood spectrum at the mercy of one of music’s itchiest trigger fingers.

In the lead up to his fifth studio album, Steven Ellison prefaced You’re Dead with talk of a central concept and an underlying narrative involving death and the afterlife. Having suffered through the passing of both parents, the devastating loss of Brainfeeder label-mate Austin Peralta two years ago and a frightening hotel collapse a few days prior to wrapping up the album, You’re Dead is a true testament to the correlations between life and art. Where some artists might dedicate one track or an iTunes exclusive to personal tragedy, FlyLo masterfully wields his adversities as the driving force behind You’re Dead, resulting in a beautifully cohesive journey into the unknown and beyond.

The chaotic opening minutes of You’re Dead work wonders as an audible translation of death with an immediate flexing of experimental ingenuity across ‘Tesla’, ‘Cold Dead’ and ‘Fkn Dead’; hints of the more avant-garde sections of Cosmogramma are instantly evident as an ensemble of spiraling keys, electric guitars and crashing cymbals facilitate a backdrop of rushing drums and saxophone that fully credit the L.A. native’s deep jazz roots. Exploring life’s harshest inevitability across four instrumentals is no easy feat so the enlisting of Kendrick Lamar on the following ‘Never Catch Me’ adds significant weight as he delivers a typically flawless Kendrick Lamar verse over the floaty, pace-setting instrumental – Kendrick’s ability to maintain a track’s context (as opposed to phoning in a rehashed freestyle) shines in one of 2014’s strongest collaborations.

Injecting a sense of morbid comedy into You’re Dead is “Dead Man’s Tetris,” a bouncy medley of lethargic synth, dopey drums and Street Fighter 2 sound bytes. The dissident drawls of FlyLo’s Captain Murphy moniker and an unexpected yet completely essential Snoop Lion appearance grace the proceedings with a sense of fun without detracting from the album’s sincerity. You’re Dead’s deviation into the afterlife provides a peaceful halfway house in the form of several brief, euphoric intermissions; the acoustic ascendance of ‘Stirring’ leads perfectly into the somber vocals of Niki Randa on “Coronus, The Terminator” and the Angel Deradoorian-assisted “Siren Song” can only be described as the theme music for a trip to the pearly gates.

As quickly as You’re Dead’s mid-section whisks the listener across it’s astral peaks, we’re just as quickly reminded of our vulnerability by Thundercat’s hypnotic ‘Descent Into Madness’ and Captain Murphy’s narcotic serenade ‘The Boys Who Died In Their Sleep’. Without succumbing to the full extent of the album’s weighty concept, the final curtain slowly falls to the tune of Niki Randa’s mesmerizing vocal display over the bittersweet “The Potential//TheBeyond”, and while ‘The Protest’ could be mistaken as a bonus cut from 1983 I can’t think of a more fitting two minutes for the credits to roll across.

You’re Dead isn’t just an album; it’s a personal interpretation of life’s final chapter and the uncertainty beyond. It’s full scope will demand your undivided attention from start to finish and its interpretation is as ambiguous as the unknown forces that inspired it. Flying Lotus has produced a conceptual gem that travels seamlessly from beginning to end whilst unravelling an impossible story through a trademark array of progressive soundscapes and a cohesion that I’m now convinced only he is capable of.