In a new interview with web-zine Brightest Young Things, Steven Ellison, most known under his stage name Flying Lotus, revealed that he is working on a new jazz album. Or, as he put it, "I'm on my jazz shit, man."
Not a surprising career move for someone who has great jazz saxophonist John Coltrane as his granduncle. To those familiar with Ellison's work, it is easy to identify the jazz influence that pervades through the unique beats that he conjures.
The L.A. producer laid bare his plans on a "crazy jazz record" that he's been working on for the past few months:
We’re trying to make something that’s kind of a geek album. There are crazy time signatures and really intense playing, just because we want to go there. We want to play really fast. It’s gonna be fun, man.
He shared that he's solicited beats from Jeremiah Jae, Hudson Mohwake, and Madlib—and that he's working again with Thundercat—but Ellison didn't reveal much on his other jazz "geek album" collaborators in the interview. Though a short video that he tweeted last month of himself and Thundercat in the studio with Herbie Hancock gives us an exciting hint.
Whether he'll be producing the album under the FlyLo name, he said, "At the moment, there a lot of people involved. I’m gonna keep it that way, so we’re probably going to call it something else."
Ellison plans to have the album out sometime this year. "It all depends on if I can get in the zone."
Let's hope he gets in that zone soon.