Cosmogramma
Cosmogramma is the third studio album by American music producer Steven Ellison as Flying Lotus, released by Warp Records on May 3, 2010. Recording sessions began in October 2008 in Ellison's apartment in Los Angeles, immediately following his previous album and the death of his mother. Ellison used a laptop, a sampler and a drum machine, along with live instruments. The album draws conceptually on lucid dreaming and out-of-body experiences, with contributions from Laura Darlington, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Niki Randa, Thom Yorke, Ravi Coltrane, Rebekah Raff and Thundercat. Cosmogramma is an eclectic electronica, experimental, IDM and nu jazz record, with influences spanning numerous genres, including psychedelic hip hop and glitch. Its songs were described by journalists as multi-layered, dense, varied and with extensive production techniques, incorporating a maximalist and Afrofuturist style. Cosmogramma was promoted with a free "augmented reality" application called Cosmogramma Fieldlines. Though Ellison released no singles, he went on a tour through Canada, Europe, and United States in promotion of the album. The album entered and peaked at number 60 on the UK Albums Chart, and at number 88 on the US Billboard 200 chart. Upon release, the album received widespread critical acclaim, and was placed on numerous year-end lists. In 2011, Ellison released a compilation of B-sides, Cosmogramma Alt Takes. At the turn of the decade, several publications listed Cosmogramma among the greatest albums of the 2010s. Background On October 31, 2008, Ellison's mother died of complications from diabetes, 21 months after his great-aunt Alice Coltrane's death. Ellison said, "I decided that if I was going to speak after that experience [the death of his mother], it better be something honest, and deeper than a record that was just made for the times. I wanted to do something that made her proud." The title is an obstruction of "cosmic drama". Ellison said: Recording and production The recording sessions began in October 2008, immediately following his sophomore album Los Angeles, and while grieving his mother's death. Following a session for the track "Computer Face", he had found the energy and theme for Cosmogramma. The album was fully recorded in Ellison's apartment in Los Angeles, California. During the album's recording, Ellison developed a creative relationship with Thundercat, a member of his Brainfeeder record label. While his mother was in the hospital, Ellison brought in a mobile recording rig and set microphones around her room to gather audio samples, such as a respirator and vital-sign monitors. The samples were also used in the closing track "Galaxy in Janaki", a tribute to his mother. On the process of recording his mother's respirator, Ellison said: "I know it was a weird thing to do. I'm not the type to go out recording things like that. But I didn't want to forget that space." When asked where the title came from, he said: "that's the term my aunt gave my mother. It means mother as well." (The 1972 Alice Coltrane album World Galaxy features tracks titled "Galaxy in Turiya" (referring to Coltrane's adopted Sanskrit