Live Review: Spazzkid 'Flotus' (Flying Lotus Cover)
Flying Lotus is revered as one of the galleon flagships of progressive electronica. Covering him then, as Spazzkid has, may seem a bit of a stretch.
Fun fact #1: 'FLOTUS' is the Twitter handle of one Michelle Obama—as in the acronym for 'First Lady Of The United States'. Fun fact #2: 'FLOTUS' is not only a clever little portmanteau for legendary experimental producer FLYING LOTUS, but also the title of one of his tracks.
Fun fact #3: fellow Los Angeleno producer and all round killer beatmaker SPAZZKID has just released a cover of said track. Let's have a look at numbers two and three—we might come back to number one.
FLYING LOTUS has had his hand in some pretty interesting pies. He's the great-nephew of jazz lord JOHN COLTRANE; he's written bump music for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and a song for the extremely popular 'Adventure Time' program, lays claim to an entire radio station in the extremely popular 'Grand Theft Auto V' video game, and occasionally releases rap music under the CAPTAIN MURPHY moniker (see fun facts 4 through 7).
And then there's his studio work: four LPs spanning the cosmos of experimental electronic music: hip-hop, trip-hop, trap, house, chill-house, chill-wave, and everything in between. There's a reason FLYING LOTUS is revered as one of the galleon flagships of progressive electronica: he's pretty much sailed every ocean there is. Covering him, then, may seem a bit of a stretch.
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'Flotus' is one of his lighter atmospheric moments, flowing like an unperturbed river of sound for its first half, before washing into some clean, non-offensive hip-hop percussion in the second act. As far as experimentalism goes, everything here seems relatively forthright. Somewhat simple.
SPAZZKID, as spazz kids are wont to, shakes things up. He brings in a splash of crisp jungle charm; a tinkling, childish taste of video-game style keys; and, toward the end, a spacey, wubbing, almost dubstep-esque flourish. For a cover, this track retains little of the original. What it does preserve, however, are FLYING LOTUS's warm, buoyant vibes: making for some deliciously sunny bedroom electronica with a golden Crash Bandicoot loop. This deserves a listen. Ms Obama—Michelle: expect some accidental hashtags.
Words by Gavin Butler
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