[Warp Records]

It’s hard to pinpoint precisely where and when the structure of hip-hop beats changed. J Dilla and Madlib’s contributions to this evolution are among the most celebrated and analyzed, but where did that off-kilter shuffling, tumbling rhythm so prevalent today come from? It’s hard to deny the influence that turntablists had on this music, as classic beat juggling routines sound remarkably similar to the beats coming out of Los Angeles these days. Constructing new patterns from old breaks resulted in some of the most organic and human feeling beats and pushed the boundaries of a stagnating genre. Charting this progression of rhythm requires going back further still, though. Certainly jazz has had an immense impact on this seeming disregard for “proper” rhythm, with unconventional time signatures (basically anything other than classic 4/4) and elastic shifts. So producers who grew up listening to their fathers’ jazz records as opposed to earlier funk and soul have a naturally different way of hearing rhythm than the previous wave of beatmakers. There’s no better intro for one of the most well regarded of the new vanguard of beatsmiths, Steven Ellison, the nephew of Alice Coltrane who is known across the global music scene as Flying Lotus.

Where this year’s album Cosmogramma was a long form spiritual space odyssey, the follow-up EP, Pattern+Grid World, is an altogether more rough and tumble experimental set of careening melodies and wildly disparate rhythms, much befitting a student of jazz. Of the seven tracks here, a good number of them venture well beyond the sounds and textures of previous Flying Lotus outings. While not cohesively as strong as that mind-bending album, this EP presents the portrait of a creative musician stretching his legs and letting loose. Take the opener “Clay,” with its simple beats and slow waves of distorted vocals and meandering synths. Many of Ellison’s songs have a sense of frantic urgency, a desire to push the ideas out as quickly as possible in order to capture that illusive sense of inspiration. Here, however, it feels as if he’s taking his time and letting the track flow of it’s own will. “Kill Your Co-Workers” is different still, where a playful melody sings over a somewhat stock sounding beat, almost like the Casio bossa nova preset knocked slightly off it’s axis and allowed to mutate. It would be hard to place this as an Ellison track before its tell-tale buzzing bass arrives, at which point it’s a sure thing. Ellison well known for using humor in his productions and “PieFace,” both in title and content, is a sure to bring a smiler to listeners’ faces. This track most closely resembles the typical Flying Lotus composition where a hectic, complex drum pattern strikes out in all directions at once as squiggling tendrils of sound spray out from its center with a manic glee. “Time Vampires” fits in with the luxurious and spacious sound of “Kill Your Co-Workers,” quiet and subdued, with no direction quite in mind, no need to move beyond it’s simple tableau.

Another curveball follows, the tribal, primal “Jurassic Notion/M Theory” testing further waters of experimentation and pushing all the way out there. Like a shaman, Flying Lotus seems to be reaching deep into his soul to pull out fragments of some inner music, as the sounds here hardly fit any context, past or present. Distorted stick syncopations and chanting voices evoke the ancient at the contemporary at once, leading directly the futuristic taxi ride sounds of “Camera Day.” The thick slabs of bass and melody intertwine over a sparse drum kit, placing this within a modern funk context, even if it is a languid funk. Flying Lotus chooses to end this short set of songs on an abrupt squall of bleeps with “Physics For Everyone!” A fast-paced beat percolates with the frenzy of a jam band, while the synth completely loses control like a saxophonist lost in a solo, playing in between the notes and coming out the other side. Just as it becomes too much to handle, it all comes crashing down in a sudden stop. And with that resounding silence, Flying Lotus floats out of Pattern+Grid World back into the ether to prepare for his next exploration of the heritage of the human relationship with rhythm.