Oh, boy. Hi, everyone. Bigthony Ma'tano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Flying Lotus EP, Big Mama.

Ground-breaking West Coast producer, beatsmith, electronic music pioneer, a label head over at Brainfeeder, Mr. Flying Lotus, who is back with his first formal project in a while, and apparently, his first on his own label. As for years, Flylo had been dropping his mind-bending combinations of glitch hop, IDM, and jazz via the legendary Warp Records label. But now he's taking it home here on this Big Mama EP, which is honestly one of the most notable releases to drop on his own record label in a minute, too. Because honestly, even though Brainfeeder and Flylo are vital and massively influential when it comes to the modern landscape of instrumental hip hop and electronic music, they're both not exactly in super strong positions today, creatively. Not only because the LA beat music scene has been so mercilessly copied and ripped off and sloppified by the current wave of AI music and all these different terrible generic lofi hip hop streams and YouTube channels that drown out the pioneers of these sounds with much more generic iterations of their style.

But also, Flying Lotus's output hasn't really been all that hot as of late either. His last proper album, Flamagra, dropped back in 2019, saw more mixed reviews than any project in his catalog thus far. Since then, he seems to have mostly been focusing on soundtrack output for franchises like Yasuke and ASH. While Big Mama here isn't necessarily attached to anything of the sort, it does similarly feel like another soundtrack pitch, but for a different medium. The six tracks on this record are not a soundtrack per se, but they sound like what Flying Lotus would do if you were tasked to come together with a soundtrack for a video game. Which is not only made apparent by the usual mix of jazz and IDM and glitch hop influences coming together with all these chip tune esthetics throughout this thing. But also there are a few tracks on Big Mama that actually feel like they are developed far enough to stand completely on their own or as if they don't exist to function in service of something happening while they're playing. Because there are a lot of very sudden changes throughout these pretty short compositions on this thing that as someone who grew up playing video games in the '80s and '90s, make me feel like I'm transitioning between different levels or boss battles.

The opening track, for example, is a short whiff of what feels like a jittery, fast, select screen type jam with lots of skittering beats and dizzying arpeggios. Then "Captain Kernel" opens up with what feels like some water-level (Super Mario) Odyssey vibes. Very Donkey Kong Country, too, with these super immersive synthesizers enveloping the whole mix. That is before the track jumps into the sliding staccato synth cords with building 16 bit bass, some jazzy improv melodies as well that reach a pretty satisfying climax by the end.

And as we go further into this EP, the video game influences become even more obvious. "Antelope Onigiri" has more sound effects than music at some points. The whole track feels like I am speed-running a 2D platformer where all of these projectiles and enemies are flying at me from every direction. Then "In the Forest - Day", and the day specification is very important. This one makes me feel like I'm playing Pokémon Red and Blue. The dreamy scents throughout this one sound great, but the composition itself leaves a lot to be desired because, again, a lot of the time, it doesn't feel like these tracks exist to be interesting as pieces unto themselves, but more complementary sounds and music beds to something happening on top of them.

The final moments on the EP feel almost like a one, two, three punch, different stages of a boss battle that finishes the whole thing off. And while each moment does have interesting parts here and there, none of it develops far enough for me to want to come back to it for more listens.

So I don't know. While the Big Mama EP overall, I think, is fine, it's cool to hear Flying Lotus dabbling more in electronic sounds, and even this whole chip tune direction isn't a bad move. If he is going to push further into this direction, I would love to hear developments, passages, and structures that keep me in the piece and the composition itself like many of his older tracks, as well as the production experiments and details that left me wondering, "Oh, shit, this is crazy. How did he do this?" Which is precisely what made projects like You're Dead and Cosmogramma so mind-blowing.

So yeah, once more while, I think Big Mama presents an interesting aesthetic switch for Flylo. If this is what his music is going to be, at least in the immediate future, I would prefer to hear him build these tracks out so that they don't simply sound like a soundtrack to something else. Which is why I'm feeling a light to decent 6 on Big Mama.

Anthony Fantano, Flying Lotus, Forever.