Flying Lotus - Flamagra (Deluxe Edition) (2020) [Hi-Res]

In the middle of writing his sixth album Flamagra, Steven Ellison—the experimental electronic producer known as Flying Lotus—took up piano lessons. “It’s never too late!” the 35-year-old tells Apple Music. “It's always nice to have someone checking your technique and calling you on your bulls**t.” For the past decade, Ellison’s primary tool has been his laptop, but for this album, he committed to learning each instrument. “It actually made me faster,” says the artist, who is a product of LA’s beat scene and the grandnephew of John and Alice Coltrane. “Suddenly, I could hear every part.” Inspired by the destructive wildfires that swept California's coastline and the deadly 2016 Ghost Ship fire, which broke out at a warehouse in Oakland, Flamagra—a jazzy, psychedelic concept album that spans 27 tracks—imagines a world in which Los Angeles was lit by an eternal flame. “One that was contained, and good,” he says. “How would we use it?'" To explore that heady framework, he tapped some of pop culture's most out-of-the-box thinkers, including George Clinton, David Lynch, Anderson .Paak, and Solange—all visionary artists with specific points of view who, Ellison knows, rarely do guest features. "The fact is, most of these artists are my friends," he says. "I like to do things organically. That's the only way it feels right." Read on for the story behind each collaboration.