Beautiful, and at times haunting, visuals moved across the screens, both behind and in front of Steven Ellison, better known by is stage name Flying Lotus, creating a dizzying 3D effect.
The bodies in the crowd swayed and clapped to the heavy hip-hop inspired electronic beats that mixed seamlessly from one track to the next.
The American music maker weaved various sounds together to make them work, from the tinkering of xylophone chimes to saxophone and video game samples and jungle vibing bass lines.
Merging sounds together in an off-kilter and occasionally queasy way, he moved through time sequences and then jumped to a lighter sound, as if he were painting music like they were the colours of his glittered kaleidoscopic visuals.
Even jazz influences came through at times, especially through guitar licks and drum lines.
Fly-Lo's show was overwhelming and enrapturing with trippy flashing lights putting you in a hypnotic trance. It was like watching a performance art piece rather than a typical concert or DJ set.
Fly-Lo took the audience through various worlds at an astounding rate and all you could do is hold on and experience the sensory overload. Many tracks flowed with the swift words of rappers, like Medication Meditation featuring Krayzie Bone, and were simply bad-ass.
Emerging from behind the screen, Fly-Lo dropped The Killing Joke, rapping his through the thriller of a song, then onto Between Friends, teasing that Earl Sweatshirt was in the building. He wasn't.
Fly-Lo ended the night playing Schoolboy Q's Man of the Year, No Type by Rae Sremmurd and crowd favourite Never Catch Me, as he sipped from a bottle of something dangerous, signed records and high-fived his fans.
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Who: Flying Lotus
Where: The Powerstation, Auckland
When: January 28
- nzherald.co.nz
