Los Angeles-based producer Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus, is ostensibly a hip-hop artist, but he draws from such a broad range of influences—free jazz, fusion, drum ‘n’ bass, psychedelic rock, plus of course the twin pillars of J Dilla and California medical marijuana that form the foundation of his oeuvre—that it’s usually impossible to pin him down in one genre. Though he only started attracting serious attention after his 2008 album Los Angeles, he’s already begotten a legion of imitators, which includes his fellow travelers in the Brainfeeder crew, bedroom beat makers posting on SoundCloud, and even Radiohead, whose King of Limbs had Ellison’s virtual fingerprints all over it. He recently released Until the Quiet Comes, his third LP for respected avant-electronic label Warp; for more on that, see Soundboard.

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The new album, how would you say that it’s different than your previous stuff, than Cosmogramma, the stuff before that?

Yeah. [Publicist] David [Marek] just sent it to me today, so I just heard it today.

Oh yeah, I’m a producer at heart. I’ve been getting into the kind of head space of being a traveling musician, you know, but I’m definitely a studio guy.

A lot of these rappers—some of the older people that you’re talking about—are from the very end of when, I guess, getting a major-label record contract actually meant something as far as, you know, a promise that you’d make money off of it or exposure from it. And a lot of these young kids are not only into a different landscape now, but they’re young enough that they don’t even remember what it was like back when there was a music industry that actually had a lot of leg in the ground, if you know what I’m saying. How do you think . . . ’cause with the Brainfeeder stuff, I’m sure that you see that as well—kind of the label perspective of how hard it is to do things right now. How do you think that’s changing the music? Or do you think that’s changing the music?

I was listening to everything, man. We grew up with a lot of soul music. I spent a lot of time with cousins who played jazz music but also, you know, listened to the music of Prince and stuff like that. Also listened to classical music at a young age too.

I don’t know. I’m kind of staying open to it. I’m just enjoying producing at the moment and collaborating. I’ll find a story soon.

Tue 10/16, 9 PM, Metro, sold out, 18+.