Ellison picks up. After some confusing introductory chitchat in which I accidentally introduce myself as writing for Beat Radio, Ellison says abruptly, “You sound like you’re stoned.” After a long pause, I awkwardly try to explain it’s really because it’s four in the morning and I’ve only just woken up and might be a bit out of it and it’s all due to the fact that the interview slot was originally planned for Australian time but I’m actually in France at the moment and…
“Four in the morning? What the hell are you doing calling me at four in the morning? You could’ve called any time today and you waited until four in the morning to call. You’re crazy.” Ellison is laughing and then we’re both laughing. I’m crazy.
Well, at least the ice is broken, sort of. I assure Ellison that I haven’t been smoking marijuana prior to our interview, and neatly segue into my next question. Does Ellison have any plans to move state, after the recent successful ballots in Washington and Colorado?
“No. I mean, it’s just weed, man. I don’t need to move to Washington to get high. In fact, I feel like it’s gonna take off in California. It’s only a matter of time. It pretty much feels legal here anyway for the most part.” So what’s Ellison up to right now? “I’m just kinda in the lab at the moment. Just playing around with ideas. I know I’m happy.”
For a notorious perfectionist like Ellison, being “in the lab” is just the start of a long and meticulously album-writing process. As well as each track being honed to the point of excellence in its own right, a lot of the work lies in making sure the album fits together and flows in a certain way. “I spend so much time on that. Because a lot of the things I make here, they’re just drafts until it’s time… like, I really like this, it’s time to develop it. So I sit on a lot of drafts. And when I believe it, then it becomes something.
“The place I always pull from is my childlike innocence, or enthusiasm, really, more than innocence; my enthusiasm for the arts and being a fan of art of music. I really love to play with that. I’ll never forget what it’s like to be a fan of stuff. When I get into something I really go in, like, it becomes my world for whatever length of time I’m into it. I get obsessive about shit.
“Right now, I’m obsessed with manga. I’ve been reading a lot of manga like a fucking fourteen-year-old American boy. I’m reading manga like it just came out. It’s awesome. I’m really into it at the moment.”
With that in mind, it’s more than likely Ellison will have a few manga comics in his carry-on when he flies over later this month for a brief Australian tour. He’ll be debuting his brand-new live show, Layer 3, for the Let Them Eat Cake festival on New Year’s Day. If I were running the festival, I’d probably jestingly refer to it as his “Layer Cake” show. But I’m not, so I’ll be quiet.
Ellison reveals that the concept of the show is something he’s been mulling over for a while — it’s just taken a while to make it happen. “It’s funny, because this is a show that I imagined happening maybe like two or three years ago. To me, it always seemed very simple. But a lot of the people around me were like, I don’t know if that could work, it seems really difficult. And there were a few people around who tried to make it way more grandiose than it needed to be. Once we just simplified it the way it was meant to be, it came together really quickly. The show was kinda developed within two months of working on it. After having this idea for so long, it was like, ‘how the fuck did we wait so long to build this thing?’
“The way it works is there are two projections that are happening, and I’m in between the projections. There’s a rear-projected screen and a front-projected screen and with the imagery that we have on them, it gives the appearance that there’s a 3D show happening in front of you.”
It all sounds pretty complex, especially given that both screens are actually programmed on-the-fly. Ellison explains that … “Yeah, well it is. I’m really lucky with the show because some of my really good friends are working on it. It really helps things because they know my style and my sensibilities and they know the things that I like. We all talk about the same visual references so it makes the communication really easy. They even know the way I dance around on stage and they know certain things that I do and they can play off of it.
Ellison cites inspiration from 2001: A Space Odyssey and “a lot of really cool visual shows”, mentioning fellow electronic trailblazers Nosaj Thing and Amon Tobin. Anyone who’s witnessed Tobin’s ISAM show can testify to its sheer magnitude of scale. But the trade-off is that it doesn’t feel much like live performance. For most of the show, Tobin is hidden from view, and when you can see him, it’s like watching a wizard weaving magic spells in a huge, distant castle — albeit a brilliantly-luminated psychedelic castle.
With Ellison, however, the up-close-and-personal aspect of his show wasn’t something he wanted to neglect. He admits, “[Layer 3] definitely is more of a separation. But I still come out and show my face and stuff. I think people like to watch me, so I wanted to give them something to look at.”
I look at my watch: our interview time is up. I find myself asking that oh-so-clichéd last question, “Where would you be if you weren’t making music?”
“Oh God,” laughs Ellison. “I’d probably be depressed, wherever I was. I’m already depressed, so I’d be really depressed. You know what, man, here’s the thing. I am depressed because I know I can be doing more. That’s a fucking depressing feeling, knowing that I’m only doing the bare minimum. I feel like there’s so much I can tap into, so much I can do, and that is depressing as fuck to me.”
For a few moments, I’m lost for words. Here is Flying Lotus — a true prodigy of electronic music, who has collaborated with scores of talented artists and musicians and a few months ago realised his fourth studio album to near-unanimous approval, as well as keeping up a hectic touring schedule and pioneering a ridiculously cool new live show — here is Flying Lotus telling me he isn’t doing enough and is depressed. It’s a bit surreal. I tentatively suggest to Ellison that perhaps it’s a good thing that he isn’t doing more, lest he actually cause his listeners’ heads to explode. Maybe it’s a good idea to be gentle with us.
“But just like… what if I could do MORE!?”, Ellison almost shouts back at me, and then laughs. “Fuck that. I’ll be gentle when I’m dead, bro. I got work to do.”
BY MORGAN RICHARDS
