posted by all-musicrecords
Until the Quiet Comes is the fourth studio album by American electronic music producer Flying Lotus, released on September 26, 2012 by Warp Records. Flying Lotus was inspired to create the album by psychedelic music, African percussion, and concepts of the human subconscious and dream world.
He recorded for two years at his home in Los Angeles, experimenting with different mixing techniques and dynamics while primarily using an Ableton Live sequencer along with other instruments and software. The producer was accompanied on certain songs by guest vocalists, including Erykah Badu, Thom Yorke, and Laura Darlington. The album also continued his creative partnership with bassist Thundercat, who had appeared on Flying Lotus' 2010 record Cosmogramma.
An electronic jazz album, Until the Quiet Comes features free jazz elements, varying musical tones, contrasting scales, and shifts in rhythmic feel. Its songs are sequenced together and characterized by what music journalists noted to be ghostly vocal production, irregular drum beats, pulsating percussive textures, trembling basslines, trilled synthesizers, and fluctuating samples.
The album has a journey-like concept and dreamy musical narrative, which Flying Lotus conceived while imagining himself in the process of astral projection.
He later said the album could be interpreted uniquely by listeners; it has been interpreted by writers as a musical accompaniment to dreams and a process of emotional introspection by the producer.
Until the Quiet Comes was marketed with two singles and a short film featuring music from the album. Flying Lotus also promoted the album with an international concert tour from October to November 2012, performing at venues in North America and abroad.
The album debuted at number 34 on the Billboard 200 and sold 13,000 copies in its first week of release. It was a widespread critical success, receiving praise for its complex music and Flying Lotus' sound engineering.
Until the Quiet Comes is characterized by varying musical tones, contrasting scales, both consonant and dissonant sounds, counterpoint, and shifts in feel. Its complex, diverse soundscapes deviate from popular music song forms and employ contrast and improvisational adjustments in mood, structure, and time signature. Darryl Kirchner of The Huffington Post notes an emphasis on timbre throughout the album. Mark Richardson of Pitchfork observes Flying Lotus "putting a smaller frame around each individual part" throughout the album's shifts and finds the "energy" to be "just as strong" as on his previous albums, but "concentrated into a smaller space." Although he finds it less "imposing" than its predecessor, Thomas May of musicOMH comments that "Until the Quiet Comes is like a chamber concerto to Cosmogramma's symphony", noting "an increased sense of space and separation" on the former.
Songs on the album incorporate ghostly vocal production, winding basslines, uptempo drum-and-bass fills, broad orchestral elements, pulsating percussive textures, bright keyboards, trilled synthesizers, and fluctuating samples.
They are sequenced together and exhibit a diminishing pace from the end of one track to the start of another. Joe Tacopino of Rolling Stone views that the album's guest vocalists "float into [Flying Lotus's] realm like visitors, just as fragile and malleable as the other elements he employs.
This reiterates the album's feel as one complete story, instead of disparate songs." Fellow music journalist Vincent Pollard comments that most of the vocals are "used as subtle textures" and observes Flying Lotus "employing more organic tropes in his digital mix".
He incorporates horn arrangements and live drum patterns, while his programmed beats evoke the "in the pocket" drumming of percussionists such as Rashied Ali. The songs also exhibits Flying Lotus' characteristic mix of skittering, muffled percussion atop slightly irregular drum beats, accompanied by Thundercat's trembling basslines.
Stylistically, the album eschews Flying Lotus' hip hop roots for jazz influences, including free form jazz tonality and undertones, and jazz-based time signatures and patterns.
Gabrielle Ahern of CMJ calls it "a moody, electronic version of experimental jazz." Jonny Ensall of Time Out views the album as "a digital jazz record which pushes hip hop beats and R&B melodies into bold, new syncopated and atonal territory."
Tony Ware of Electronic Musician attributes "certain chord choices and the interest in astral mystical states that permeates Until the Quiet Comes" to Flying Lotus' "family lineage" of jazz musicians. Uncut finds it "often reminiscent of his auntie's work", while Consequence of Sound's Derek Staples perceives a "free jazz aesthetic" similar to "his great-uncle John Coltrane's Ascension", viewing both albums as "exercise[s] in dense rhythmic layers and melodic dissonance."
The album also repurposes elements of pop, soul, fusion, and psychedelia in a modern classical fashion. Q describes the album as "a lush, almost psychedelic mood piece." Lucy Jones of NME attributes the album's "meander[ing] and experiment[ing]" to a progressive rock influence.
Track listing
1. All In 2:59
2. Getting There (featuring Niki Randa) - 1:49
3. Until the Colours Come - 1:07
4. Heave(n) - 2:22
5. Tiny Tortures - 3:03
6. All the Secrets - 1:56
7. Sultan's Request - 1:42
8. Putty Boy Strut - 2:53
9. See Thru to U (featuring Erykah Badu) - 2:24
10. Until the Quiet Comes - 2:11
11. DMT Song (featuring Thundercat) - 1:19
12. The Nightcaller - 3:29
13. Only If You Wanna - 1:42
14. Electric Candyman (featuring Thom Yorke) - 3:32
15. Hunger (featuring Niki Randa) - 3:39
16. Phantasm (featuring Laura Darlington) - 3:51
17. me Yesterday//Corded - 4:39
18. Dream to Me - 1:36
19. The Things You Left (Japanese bonus track) - 2:49
Personnel
- Sam Baker – composer
- Brandon Coleman – keyboards
- Gene Coye – drums
- Daddy Kev – mastering
- Laura Darlington – composer, vocals
- Dorian Concept – keyboards
- Erykah Badu – composer, vocals
- Miguel Atwood Ferguson – strings
- Flying Lotus – composer, producer
- Jonny Greenwood – composer
- The Integration Players – strings
- Dan Kitchens – photography
- Austin Peralta – composer, keyboards
- Niki Randa – composer, vocals
- Stephen Serrato – art direction, design
- Thundercat – bass guitar, composer, vocals
- Thom Yorke – composer, vocals
Companies, etc.
- Phonographic Copyright ℗ – Warp Records Limited
- Copyright © – Warp Records Limited
- Published By – Just Isn't Music
- Published By – Third Side US Publishing
- Published By – Divine Pimp Publishing
- Published By – Universal Music
- Published By – Copyright Control
- Published By – Music Rights Management Ltd.
- Published By – 41GP Music Ltd.
- Published By – Warner/Chappell Music Ltd.
- Made By – Optical Experts Manufacturing – 2216500
Credits
- Art Direction – Stephen Serrato
- Art Direction [With] – B+
- Design – Stephen Serrato
- Mastered By – Daddy Kev
- Photography By – B+
- Photography By [With] – Dan Kitchens
- Producer [Produced By] – Steven Ellison
- Written-By – Steven Ellison (tracks: 1, 3 to 8, 10, 17, 18)
Notes
Released: September 26, 2012
Recorded: 2011–12 Studio Home recording (Mount Washington)
Genre: Electronica, Electronic Jazz, Psychedelia
Length: 49:41
Label - Warp Records
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