If you’ve been thinking to yourself, “You know what I really need? Some really weird music,” here it is. Flying Lotus’ latest studio album, “Flamagra,” is some really weird music.

And in many ways, that could easily be the review. But we have some column inches to fill up, and thankfully there are some more interesting things to say about this very good, but very, very weird record.

Strangeness has always been a defining characteristic of Flying Lotus’ career, a producer best known for his blending of elements of jazz, funk, hip-hop and more avant garde styles of music. Flying Lotus, whose real name is Steven Ellison, has been active for some time now, but his idiosyncratic style really codified into something special in 2014, with the release of his groundbreaking record “You’re Dead!”

“You’re Dead!” was nothing short of remarkable, fitting into a similar category as, say, Miles Davis’ 1970 landmark double record “Bitches Brew,” but with a heaping dose of LSD. Well, knowing Miles Davis, more LSD, but that’s neither here nor there.

“Flamagra” really feels like the follow-up to “You’re Dead!” that it is. Flying Lotus largely disappeared after the 2014 record, dropping a film and some loose tracks but nothing by way of a full-length record in the five years since. And, now that he’s back, FlyLo seems like he’s spent the past half a decade spiraling further down the rabbit hole he started down in “You’re Dead!”

And to a large degree, the results are great. “Flamagra,” much like its predecessor, is a largely instrumental album, which obviously does not lend itself to criticism in the same way that a vocally focused record does, but to paint in broad brush strokes, the album features highly frenetic instrumentation, sitting at the strange border between jazz and funk with occasional hip-hop percussion. The mood of the album shifts between jubilant and eerie with little warning, shifting back just as quickly.

Allegedly, the main theme of the record is fire, as the name implies, and Flying Lotus told Pitchfork that the theme largely comes from a conversation he overheard David Lynch having at a party.

Lynch’s contribution to that conversation was repeated for a recording at Flying Lotus’ request, which becomes the bulk of the song “Fire Is Coming,” in which we hear Lynch delivering a characteristically terrifying but also seemingly meaningless account of a boy receiving a phone call.

It’s hard to put into words why this piece is so affecting, because Lynch’s words themselves aren’t particularly eerie. But his delivery is off-putting to say the least, rising to a crescendo as he shouts “Fire is coming!” as Flying Lotus’ production grows more and more frantic. The track comes more or less halfway through the record, and it feels like the linchpin — if you’ll forgive my pun — of the whole thing.

In many ways, the album feels like fire. While the album is nearly 30 songs long, it barely cracks an hour in length, meaning most of the tracks are barely longer than a minute. Like some sort of holy fire, themes flicker by the listener, shifting amorphously into different songs, rarely staying long enough to be focused on.

The handful of tracks that don’t feel like incidental pieces are typically the ones with featured vocalists, and Flying Lotus has employed an eclectic cast of characters.

Besides Lynch, we hear contributions from Anderson .Paak, Parliament Funkadelic’s George Clinton, Denzel Curry, Thundercat, Solange and others. Each of these vocalists bring something radically different to the record, with each leaning into their own unique and established idioms, but being made to sound slightly off-kilter by Flying Lotus’ production style.

Most of the moments on the record are stunning, but if there is any flaw to this album, it’s that there are simply too many moments. “Flamagra” dwarfs “You’re Dead!” by a bit more than 20 minutes, but it seems like both records had the same amount of memorable content.

It’s a shame, though, because “Flamagra” has more content that I want to return to outside of the context of the record than “You’re Dead!,” but the earlier album ends up feeling stronger due to its succinctness.

That said, though, “Flamagra” is an incredible record, especially for those craving some experimental funk and jazz. It’s hard to overstate how strange this record is, but if “strange” doesn’t sound like a complaint to you, you may very well love it.

Flying Lotus’ most recent record, ‘Flamagra,’ dropped on May 24.
https://www.theweekender.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/web1_flying-lotus-flamagra.jpg.optimal.jpgFlying Lotus’ most recent record, ‘Flamagra,’ dropped on May 24.

By Patrick Kernan

pkernan@timesleader.com

Album: ‘Flamagra’

Artist: Flying Lotus

Label: Warp

Length: 66:57

Best Tracks: “Takashi,” “Black Balloons Reprise”

Reach Patrick Kernan at 570-991-6386 or on Twitter @PatKernan