Flying Lotus
1983
Album · Electronic · 2026 · Brainfeeder
Long before “lo-fi beats” became synonymous with corporate mood music and infinitely looping study/cooking/whatever playlists, there was Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus. A gamer and anime fan who started making music on a laptop while in film school, Ellison articulated a subculture you knew was there but had never been seen quite so clearly: nerdy kids who related to hip-hop more as a form of collage art than political expression, who loved colorful, surrealistic cartoons, who drank in serious influences—spiritual jazz, abstract electronic music—with a sense of play that made the music feel easy no matter how sophisticated the work behind it got.
His first album, 2006’s 1983 (his birth year) still feels pivotal, a mix of squelchy synths, chopped-up samples, hazy ambience, and lopsided Dilla-esque drum programming whose overall mood was like a cool-kid update of ’50s exotica records—the faraway land you could reach without leaving your living room, aloha shirts included. It could feel funny (“Pet Monster Shotglass”), it could feel dreamy (“1983”), it could feel surprisingly strange and beautiful (“Orbit Brazil”), but above all, it had an essential pulse of creativity that heralded bigger things.
Ellison went on to make a string of classics (including Cosmogramma and You’re Dead!), as well as direct movies (2023’s Ash), start a majorly influential label (Brainfeeder), soundtrack documentaries, and even make a couple of iPhone ringtones (“Daybreak” and “Chalet” fans, unite). But it started here, in 1983.
1983
Flying Lotus
Long before “lo-fi beats” became synonymous with corporate mood music and infinitely looping study/cooking/whatever playlists, there was Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus. A gamer and anime fan who started making music on a laptop while in film school, Ellison articulated a subculture you knew was there but had never been seen quite so clearly: nerdy kids who related to hip-hop more as a form of collage art than political expression, who loved colorful, surrealistic cartoons, who drank in serious influences—spiritual jazz, abstract electronic music—with a sense of play that made the music feel easy no matter how sophisticated the work behind it got.
His first album, 2006’s 1983 (his birth year) still feels pivotal, a mix of squelchy synths, chopped-up samples, hazy ambience, and lopsided Dilla-esque drum programming whose overall mood was like a cool-kid update of ’50s exotica records—the faraway land you could reach without leaving your living room, aloha shirts included. It could feel funny (“Pet Monster Shotglass”), it could feel dreamy (“1983”), it could feel surprisingly strange and beautiful (“Orbit Brazil”), but above all, it had an essential pulse of creativity that heralded bigger things.
Ellison went on to make a string of classics (including Cosmogramma and You’re Dead!), as well as direct movies (2023’s Ash), start a majorly influential label (Brainfeeder), soundtrack documentaries, and even make a couple of iPhone ringtones (“Daybreak” and “Chalet” fans, unite). But it started here, in 1983.
