4 out of 5

Label: Warp

Produced by: Flying Lotus

‘You’re Dead!’ is a tricksy little album.  For a few tracks, you’re mesmerized by the return of flipped-out jazz-funk a la mid-era Amon Tobin, but before you can climb the tallest peak to sing its praises, Kendrick Lamar is doing his slippery-lyric amazingness atop a slick and cool electro hip-hop beat, and lo, Snoop Dog is around the corner on an equally impressive track, so maybe this is a rap album.  Only ‘Turkey Dog Coma’ starts, which is goofy and nerdy and twenty songs in one, throwing you for a loop which resolves into tracks like ‘Coronus, the Terminator’ and ‘Siren Song,’ warped and sultry slow-jams…  The wonderfully titled ‘Ready Err Not’ is a bit more accessible Cold Cut style of beats and blips (though still fully Lotus’ own beast, a swirl of forever-shuffling drums and horns and keys and bass), but this only gives way to the oddball darkness of ‘Descent into Madness’ and ‘The Boys Who Died in Their Sleep,’ both sounding like lost soundtracks to 70s drug trips.  Completing the trick, Lotus concludes on the strong, proud and contemplative ‘The Protest,’ which resolves and gives credence to every moment that came before… even though thematically it doesn’t match with the ‘You’re Dead!’ samples floating around much of the album.

I’m not knowledgable enough in the history of electro, or jazz, or funk, or even Flying Lotus to say if this is business as usual or a cut above.  Whatever the case – ‘Dead!’ is an unbelievable production achievement that never stutters, despite never stopping for too long in any particular genre.  Part of the intelligence of the design, to my ears, is in keeping the album partitioned so that it doesn’t just sound like random cuts.  At the same time, it is incredibly busy and focused on getting to the next song; while the rotating aural palette keeps the album eminently repeatable, it also makes it easy to just let is pass you by – I had to give it a few spins before I had a grasp on it, and even then, a few spins more to better understand that grasp, nestling it just shy of something striking to be an awesome curiosity.

(Four stars… justified.)