Flying Lotus and Earl Sweatshirt Join Forces On “Between Friends”

Back in April, a menagerie of characters joined Flying Lotus on stage for the finale of his Weekend One Coachella set, punctuated by a live rendition of “Hard In Paint”. The on-stage crowd was made up largely of the Brainfeeder cohort, but one prepubescent face stuck out. None other than Earl Sweatshirt was standing front and center flapping his stick like arms and wylin’ like… well like he was on stage for a Thundercat assisted rendition of “Hard In The Paint”. Up until that point, a collaboration between the two Angelenos seemed like nothing more than a pipe dream and their public relationship boiled down to Twitter banter. From there though… whew anything was possible. “Between Friends” is that possibility. Part of Adult Swim’s Singles Series (faultless as of late), the collaboration is another example of the Odd Future stalwart taking his talents in a new direction. Last week, he was featured on The Alchemist’s dusty “Elimination Chamber” and “Between Friends” sees him attempting another distinctly non-Odd Future sound. Both fans and haters of the collective will be hard-pressed not to sink their teeth into “Between Friends”, also featuring the mysteriously named Captain Murphy that sounds a little like Tyler. The fractured beginning of the track is congruent with the off-kilter sound FlyLo has carefully cultivated, a sound as akin to Dilla as it is to Aphex Twin, that is to say somewhere in the realm between sample hip hop and jungle. Earl’s sometime frustrating monotone effortlessly slips into the grooves of the beat and that’s about all you need to know. Lucky for all of us, the good folks at Adult Swim are giving away “Between Friends” for free (get it below). The track will not appear on FlyLo’s upcoming Until The Quiet Comes, hitting us on October 1st.

Download: Flying Lotus – “Between Friends” Feat. Earl Sweatshirt and Captain Murphy)

Update: Flying Lotus was kind enough to upload the instrumental to his Soundcloud. Much love Mr. Ellison. Much love.