Flying Lotus transports his fans to a magical place with Layer Three

The popular electronic music artist and DJ, Flying Lotus, is constantly attempting to push the bar in whatever he does. With his newest album, "Until The Quiet Comes", Flying Lotus has produced music that is entirely unique, sounds that have never been heard before. To accompany that music on tour, Flying Lotus wanted a visual effect that was rare and exclusive to his music. His solution: Layer Three.

Layer Three can be broken down into its three layers. Flying Lotus is placed in between two transparent scrims, which represent the three layers, a front scrim, the DJ, and the back scrim. On the front scrim there is a series of images front projected that vibe off the music. Next is Flying Lotus who is performing a live DJ set via Ableton. Behind Flying Lotus is the back scrim, which has images back projected onto it. Each scrim is being controlled by a separate person, who is live-mixing the images onto the screen. Each show is entirely unique in both the music being performed and the images projected. Strangeloop, the artist controlling the front screen, attempts to create and project images that play off of the music, releasing a unique vibe to the audience. Timeboy controls the back screen and he projects images that display the place or environment Flying Lotus is attempting to take the fans with his performance. Both artists mix the images using a program called resolume avenue.

My roommate, Tyler Dance, is the one who turned me onto Flying Lotus and Layer Three. He got the chance to go see Layer Three live in Philadelphia last April, and said it was the "trippiest most memorizing shit I ever done did see ever" and that "it looked like magic." I unfortunately did not get the opportunity to go with him, and I have to experience the performance via Youtube, but I am still very impressed with everything Flying Lotus is doing. Whether he is creating new musical genres or a unique performance, Flying Lotus raises the bar with everything he does.

Duality

29 year old producer, Steven Ellison, also known as Flying Lotus, and Captain Murphy, has always had a very alternative approach music, and art itself. One of his early albums, entitled "Cosmogramma," touched on how experimental Flying Lotus's career is, and hinted at what direction he could potentially be going. His other alias, Captain Murphy, first was presented last year with a anonymous Youtube account during the summer of 2012. Fans began speculating the identity of the unknown artist based on the musical stylings, content, and other collaborative musicians. Upon the arrival of the date of his first mixtape release, he posted via Twitter a link to a website: http://captainmurphy.xxx/. It is a link to a rather empty website, containing a single thirty-six minute video. There is a huge lack of context with the clips chosen, it contains everything from cartoons, to pornography, to 1980 films. The general theme of the video is that Captain Murphy is a cult leader and he is attempting to recruit you into his cult, telling you to "join our elite mission to save the world," and that "it doesn't sound like your friends and family love you if they can't support your new decision. Maybe you should stay away from them. It is unhealthy for you to be around unenlightened people anyway." The video is broken into seven "lessons," that all promote similar things to the quotes listed above. It is still unclear the context and the motives of this video. Steven Ellison claims that he never wanted credit as the identity behind Captain Murphy which further illustrates his alternative approach to art and his desire to say and do what others will not.

Here is Duality: