Flying Lotus 3D Show
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February 2020
The importance of Flying Lotus’ Flamagra has never been so apparent than during his current Australian tour. Flamagra is a concept album, illustrating an untouchable, eternal fire burning throughout California, an idea developed during the increasingly horrendous fire seasons experienced in Flying Lotus’ home state. As we continue to experience our worst ever bushfire season, with uncontrollable fires sweeping the nation, it is clear the eternal fire pictured in Flamagra is here, now. Flying Lotus has never been one to shy away from destruction, death and apocalypse. His 2014 jazz-fusion album You’re Dead! explores such themes, inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead, with ideas so dark they drove Pharrell Williams away from involvement in the album. In 2012, he created the villainous, MF DOOM-esque alter-ego, Captain Murphy, an evil cult-leader created to save humanity from destruction (or even cause said destruction) in Flying Lotus’ only rap mixtape, Duality. At Newtown’s Enmore Theatre, FlyLo was clad in a traditional leather gown, on a stage propped up by jarring metal poles, surrounded by an array of psychedelic and firey 3D visuals and blasting his own psychedelic and firey music - taking another step in becoming a musical leader for a confused and suffering world.
His show was unconventionally but rather fittingly opened with a couple of short films and a DJ set from English producer Mark Pritchard. The Four Worlds opened the night, a short film displaying vast graphic landscapes designed by Jonathan Zawada, backed by the synth and bass heavy music of Mark Pritchard. The film continued seamlessly into a similarly synth and bass heavy set from Pritchard himself. While pretty long, it was kept interesting by the almost procedurally generated landscape visuals, which set an intensely unnerving but interesting tone. The screening of Strangeloop Studio’s Children of the Void stood out in this lineup though, stirring excitement as if it was a seamless part of the Flying Lotus set. It ran like a spiritual successor to the music videos of FlyLo and Gorillaz, both visually and musically. All I can really suggest is that you watch it here. If you enjoy quirky animation and visuals of dystopia and destruction, you will eat this up.
After a short, touching tribute to the late great Ras G later, the Flying Lotus 3D show hit the stage. The 3D visuals were a bit hit or miss (you wouldn’t want to be without the glasses): but when they did hit, they hit hard and surrounded FLyLo in an array of graphics, all of which added to the music. Psychedelic, screensaver-esque loops of geometry, sparks and unnerving animation bounced around the stage as Flying Lotus blasted unreleased tunes, tracks from Flamagra and everything else in between.
Opened by the dark and mysterious “Fire Is Coming”, with visual aid from the depraved music video by animator David Firth (remember “Salad Fingers”? Yeah, that guy…) and some spoken word by David Lynch, Flying Lotus hit the stage with hard bass and a strong opening track. The show then continued along with tunes to dance to, some to quietly listen to and others that were all about the visuals. But when the screen displayed the words “LISTEN CAREFULLY, CPT MURPHY IS ABOUT TO SPEAK”, you better believe the crowd listened carefully as Flying Lotus hopped off the decks to spit his bars on the iconic Adult Swim Single “Cosplay”. Crowd participation increased as he played and sang along to the iconic “Coronus, the Terminator”, but more notably “Black Balloons Reprise”, a track with Denzel Curry (who’s been making his own waves through Australia as of late). A bit of Thundercat, some unreleased Mac Miller and Childish Gambino verses later, Flying Lotus closed the show with “Never Catch Me”.
Of course, as most concerts go, a couple chants of “FLYLO” and “ENCORE got him to return on stage to dance and get us to dance (not just mosh), asking us to open up a circle for people to get moving in. Naturally, he jumped into “Do The Astral Plane”, a popular and classic dance track from his avant-garde experimental and, frankly wild 2010 album Cosmogramma. The set ended with less dark and mysterious energy than it began with: both aspects we’ve come to value from Flying Lotus.
Reviewed by Oscar Hoare
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