Cosmogramma was such a blisteringly intense and thrilling expansion of everything Flying Lotus had done on Los Angeles that the how do you top that questions dogged the prospect of his next album. But of course his answer to that question is I don’t: Until the Quiet Comes is, while not exactly a retreat from his more frenetic and intense tendencies as a hip-hop/IDM fusionist, definitely suffused with a bit more breathing room. He’d take an angle of (relative) restraint and calm here, a fading-high serenity where almost every melodic flourish feels like fragile crystals melting out your speakers, only to shatter once they hit the floor. The appeal is a little more slippery than his other, more audacious albums, but it’s a cumulative effect that oddly makes it feel like a good entry point for the uninitiated. In part that’s because it’s front-loaded with tracks that capture his essence — groove-minded but elastic (the soul-motorik glimmer of opener “All In”); treating texture as crucially as he does melody (the crumbling percussive goop of “Tiny Tortures”), able to shift from lighthearted silliness to resonant beauty like it’s no big deal (the chirpy, elfin analog bounce of “Putty Boy Strut”) — in ways that feel back-to-basics without coming across as overly simplified. And this regrouping isn’t just in the service of calming down: the extra space gives Thundercat, who plays bass on half the album’s tracks, plenty of opportunity for him to flex his melodic-run chops, which infuse the title cut with an undulating waviness and give Erykah Badu a plush backdrop to turn her voice into a glowing sunset haze on “See Thru to U.” Until the Quiet Comes is also one of the best ways to remember the scene’s late, great Austin Peralta, whose rangy contributions here (“Until the Colours Come”; “All the Secrets”; “Sultan’s Request”) would put him at the forefront of next-gen jazz piano less than two months before he passed.

– Nate Patrin