“When I made that soundtrack, I had all these images and emotions that I had to work to. But I finished that and just felt so free and I just wanted to do something that’s just straight up fun.”<\/p>\n
Fun is the operative word.<\/p>\n
The EP’s seven playful, colourful tracks pinball from soothing to hectic; moments of ambience give way to fingers galloping across synth keys or punctuated by villainous laughter.<\/p>\n
A new process<\/p>\n
A prolific collaborator who’s worked with everyone from Kendrick Lamar and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke to the late, great David Lynch, Ellison embarked on a new process making Big Mama.<\/p>\n
Rather than relying on loops or external input, each day he’d open his laptop and create in short, borderless bursts.<\/p>\n
“In the past, when I would open up Ableton, I would see things like a grid. ‘Okay, these are pieces that have to fit in time’. But when I re-approached it [this time] it was more like a blank canvas.<\/p>\n
“You don’t look at it in sections and corners. You look at it like, whatever can happen here, should happen.<\/p>\n
“Thinking less about the frameworks and more listening and hearing things and being like, ‘Okay, I think I know where this is gonna go. So let me destroy that!’ Subvert my own expectations.<\/p>\n
“Working in this new way also made it really inspiring to wake up and want to create.”<\/p>\n
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“It felt like I had discovered something new for myself and all the more like, ‘Ooh, I gotta see how far I can take this,” Flying Lotus says of creating Big Mama. (Supplied: Matt Leif Anderson)<\/p>\n
The explosive results call back to the most unpredictable parts of Flying Lotus’s past but concentrated in rapid, chaotic succession.<\/p>\n
It’s proof that, even this far into his career, Ellison is still trusting his instincts and finding new ways into his craft.<\/p>\n
In another first, Big Mama marks FlyLo’s debut release under Brainfeeder, home to boundary-pushers like sax virtuoso Kamasi Washington<\/a>, Australia’s own Hiatus Kaiyote<\/a>, and Ellison’s kindred spirit and frequent collaborator, Thundercat<\/a>.<\/p>\n After years of “great work” with UK’s esteemed Warp records, some “boring label stuff” led Ellison to see “what it was like to do it on my own [and] with my team that I’ve built; see what we can achieve at home.”<\/p>\n The ‘Big Booty Kaiju’<\/p>\n Big Mama’s vivid contents are emblazoned with cartoonish art by Christopher Ian McFarlane, which one online commentator humorously described<\/a> as giving “horny Jetsons”.<\/p>\n “I’m down. I’ll take it,” Ellison chuckles. He initially wanted to get McFarlane’s “gut instinct”, but he also had a vision:<\/p>\n “This big booty kaiju bomb that’s attacking the city. I really did want to go there.”<\/p>\n Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n There is also an accompanying stop-motion short film<\/a> created by Rymdreglage<\/a>, a Swedish duo whose name loosely translates to ‘intergalactic space slider’.<\/p>\n “They’re also musicians<\/a>. They’re awesome,” Ellison says of the pair: Daniel Gullberg and Tomas Redig.<\/p>\n “We had a couple of conversations and then they went and did their thing. Part of the reason why I reached out to them was because I just felt like I didn’t need to ask them a bunch of stuff. I could trust them.”<\/p>\n Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n Shot over a painstaking 300 hours, the video has a scrappy DIY energy that incorporates nostalgic items: unspooling tapes, vintage toys, TVs, and lots of foil.<\/p>\n “A lot of the inspiration came from old practical effects, toy photography and the kind of surreal worlds you’d imagine as a kid when you were playing with small objects on the floor,” explain Gulberg and Redig.<\/p>\n It’s a fittingly manic counterpart to compositions with wild, evocative titles like Antelope Onigiri and Horse Nuke.<\/p>\n Then there’s the SFX-laden trap of BROBOBASHER or the vintage synths of In The Forest, which evoke the video game soundtracks of the 8-and-16-bit console era.<\/p>\n “Good! That makes me happy! Video games are very much part of my DNA,” Ellison enthuses.<\/p>\n How Final Fantasy maestro Nobuo Uematsu legitimised video game music<\/a><\/p>\n This self-taught Japanese composer is behind some of the most beloved video game music<\/p>\n “I love the fact that game soundtracks are starting to get their recognition because people always would just discount video game artistry. It’s such a such an underrated thing.”<\/p>\n Besides curating an in-game radio station for the blockbuster Grand Theft Auto V, Flying Lotus has yet to score an entire video game. A situation he’d like to correct.<\/p>\n “I would love to be able to work on a new video game: some action game or a Metroidvania.”<\/p>\n The latter is the portmanteau given to an increasingly popular genre inspired by two classics, Metroid and Castlevania, which build upon exploration, power scaling and immersion as key aspects of their narrative and gameplay.<\/p>\n A contemporary example would be Hollow Knight and its blockbuster sequel Silk Song<\/a>, made by Australia’s very own Team Cherry.<\/p>\n “I would love for some indie developer to work on something like that with me. That’d be amazing.”<\/p>\n Game developers? consider yourself on notice.<\/p>\n Extending the bucket list<\/p>\n It would mark another tick on a long bucket list that has seen Ellison compose for anime, documentaries, and his own disturbing body horror film anthology Kuso.<\/p>\n So, what’s next?<\/p>\n “That’s a good question. Right now, I have another film I want to make while I’m working on new music.<\/p>\n “It doesn’t necessarily sound like Big Mama. I try not to get too ahead of my words because I can say a thing and do something totally different\u2026 I’m just over here cooking away.”<\/p>\n Christopher Ian McFarlane’s chaotic cover for Flying Lotus’s Big Mama EP. (Brainfeeder: Christopher Ian McFarlane)<\/p>\n Ellison got his start sending beats to Cartoon Network and interning at Stones Throw Records<\/a>, while spending evenings working on what became his debut album, 1983.<\/p>\n This year marks the 20th anniversary of that release, which is being reissued for Record Store Day<\/a>. What would the young FlyLo cutting his teeth make of today’s cult auteur?<\/p>\n “I think he would be so relieved to know that things kind of worked out instead of having to worry all the time,” Ellison reflects.<\/p>\n “What I could tell my younger self was just to not worry so much and just enjoy things. Live life more.<\/p>\n “I had to grow into that headspace. That came with experience and just maturing as an adult. I felt there was definitely a lot of time spent just being in my head.<\/p>\n “I’d be like, ‘Hey bro, it’s cool, man. Chill out, have fun. Take it from your older self.'”<\/p>\n On the EP sleeve, two matching, dreadlocked figures look out at the Big Booty Kaiju’s destruction. Perhaps it’s Flying Lotus and his younger self?<\/p>\n He responds with a knowing chuckle before attenuating the suggestion.<\/p>\n “There it is, right? Maybe\u2026”<\/p>\n Big Mama is out now. Flying Lotus plays Sydney’s Vivid Live festival<\/a> on 27 May.<\/p>\n![\"cartoon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/f74096605c0d695c6100554c3d21a944.png\")
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