FlyLo’s new fire-themed album
is a hot mess.
The experimental producer’s last
two albums had a clear theme. 2012’s Until The Quiet Comes was themed
around sleep. 2014’s You’re Dead! was themed around death.
This recent album Flamagra
meanwhile is themed around… fire, I think? Well, at least a couple tracks are
fire-themed anyhow (e.g. ‘Burning Down The House’ and ‘Fire is Coming’). The
majority seems to be a bit of a hodgepodge of ideas – not only is there no real
theme, but there’s no overall sound binding it together. And, like many
previous FlyLo albums, there aren’t really any conventional ‘songs’ here. So,
all in all, there’s not much cohesion to cling onto.
The perplexing vocal contributions
on this record don’t help. Although primarily an instrumental record, Flamagra
does feature a few vocal performances from some fairly respectable names. However,
Anderson Paak is the only one of these guests that impresses – the others are
surprisingly forgettable (Little Dragon and even Denzel Curry) or they end up
sounding completely odd/obnoxious. I can’t tell if funk legend George Clinton
is supposed to sound in pain on ‘Burning Down The House’, or if he’s just
completely lost the ability to sing with age. Tierra Whack’s lyrics on ‘Yellow
Belly’ meanwhile are plain absurd: ‘MY SHOES ARE UNTIED/ HE SAYS I’M
TRIPPING’.
Aside from these baffling vocals
and the utterly disorderly nature of the tracks, Flamagra isn't a bad record though. In fact, many of the tracks without vocals are fun and creative. ‘Pilgrim
Side Eye’ is a dissonant Super-Mario-meets-Thelonious-Monk freakout, contrasted
with some lush strings at the end. ‘Takashi’ meanwhile is a groovy synth jam
that excitedly builds for five minutes. There’s also Mac Miller tribute ‘Thank
U Malcolm’, which is a heavenly soul-flavoured explosion.
Maybe had FlyLo not bothered with
the fire theme or the vocal guests, this could have been a nice little mixtape
of miscellaneous beats. It’s hard to imagine how he could have competed with
the grand scale of You’re Dead! – an album of impressive and bombastic jazz
arrangements. If he’d gone the opposite way and delivered something minimal and
understated, it might have made for a better contrast.
★★★☆☆TRACK TASTER: