Flying Lotus Quotes

When I listen to a record, or when I'm making a record, I listen to everything. I listen to the drums, the bass, the voice, the arrangement. I listen to the whole piece as an ensemble.

Before you worry about what genre it is, about whether it's a loop or a drum, it's about what suits the song. It's using what's within your reach, but also reaching for everything you can. I don't know if I always get it right, because I don't know every sound yet.

I would start seeing, in just the sense I was saying now, the kind of record it was going to be and what the arrangement demands, and what my vocal part should be in the record. This was all emerging as the song was emerging.

We knew we wanted to put a lot of melody into it - a lot more than what we did on our first album.

If you see a credit with just my name on it, that means I write absolutely everything: rhythm guitar parts, guitar melodies, vocal melodies... absolutely everything, really.

Once I've got something that I feel is strong, if I get long enough to think about it, it'll turn into something. I'll start thinking about the drums - what the drums are doing, what the bass is doing. Then, if I can remember it by the time I get to a recording device, it'll turn into a song.

I have an obsession with making an album rather than a collection of tracks. For me it's like making a film - it's the perfect length of time to tell a story.

When it comes to music, I am a dictator. Making a Dirty Projectors record come to life is like making a movie; I'm the one that makes the picture, and then we all figure out how to realise it.

When I started making music I wanted it to have a narrative and be conceptual, but as time went on I thought it was probably more practical for a first album just to have good music.

I love to work with producers who are very good with their chord progressions.

I'd say 99 per cent of the time I write on my own, just with my guitar, and then it's trying to figure out what it needs in a production sense.

I spend time editing and massaging each note. Then I start layering with different instruments, adding harmonies, counterpoint, and whatever the song calls for. Then I arrange it into a whole piece, and decide where I need to add live musicians. It takes a lot of time, but it is very satisfying once it is complete.

In recording, you're trying to make something work sonically - getting the right inflection on the right guitar sound - and maybe a part that would be musically great doesn't sound as cool. On paper, though, it's all stripped back. The musical idea is the one that wins.

I know melody. I know rhythm; I know bass guitar; I know the piano. I know everything about music that helps build the music that go along with creating the whole art form, you know what I'm saying?

Plus, we spend most of our time writing music. Most of the time is spent in the studio in my house.

There's such a huge difference between a great arrangement of riffs and a song. Sometimes the two can be the same. But the difference is a song doesn't necessarily need a riff, whereas a riff doesn't necessarily mean you've got a good song on your hands.

If you're going to start with melody you'll need some tympani, I think.

You start to think in terms of making an album that might be greater than the sum of its parts. It's sort of like having a lot of footage and then editing it into something that will make sense to a viewer, you know. Sometimes it might involve even working on an older song that might complete that picture.

But my role is to just apply the skills I've learned over the years: you listen to the guitar, you listen to the vocal melodies, you listen to the rhythm, and you come up with something that helps you take the song somewhere.

I'm interested in creating a little sound world for songs, really crafting it, building it, and making it like a little doll's house with little things inside it, staircases and rooms and everything kind of relates to everything else. I've never seen it as drums, bass, guitar and vocals in very separate spaces.

George Martin, he's very good at a very sort of lush, sweet arrangement.

I think you can have the greatest lyrics in the world and if it doesn't have the best tune in the world it will suck. I mean if the music wasn't important it would just be a poem.

So I'll set a cycle in motion and pop it into record and I'll lay down a drum pattern, a bass line, a keyboard and guitar part, and once the groove is going I launch into the song and sing my song over the top.

The bass line is the anchor for me. I started with the bass, and either doubled that and then added the harmonies, or sometimes added my own harmonies that I've always wanted to sing on the song. And then it just went on from there - singing violin parts and trumpet parts and just trying to emulate the sounds of the instruments.

I write music every day.