Lotus “Monks” Features All-Star Cast

Lotus released “Monks” on Tuesday, September 10, and we have the lowdown on the album. This piece of material marks another record in the Lotus catalog that I have already grown to love. In the first seven seconds of ‘Monk’ (Young) the album quickly draws in listeners to their metaphysical realm.

Stream “Monks” and Pick Up a Copy with Bandcamp

Jesse and Luke produced this record, and I remember talking to Luke about it before their 2012 Summer Camp Music Festival set. He mentioned how the recording process was going for this project.

“We have a lot of different projects on the hot plate right now. I haven’t told a lot of people about this but we are doing a full hip-hop album. It will be with remixes and b-sides that was unreleased from our last album with a bunch of killer MCs: Gift of Gab, Lyrics Born, Mr. Lif and maybe one more guy to wrap up the project,” Miller said.

‘He Ain’t Well’ featuring Ozay Moore is a golden goose track. Each beat, each line is just another gold egg created by the Miller brothers and company on this entire album. ‘Cannon in the Heavens’ featuring Lyrics Born is the junk yard dog track of the album. Luke mentioned using b sides for beats on this album, and Lyrics Born tears into verbally like an anger dog.

‘Great Molasses Flood’ pounds away at the electronic beats structuring at the core of the band. There is a little disco synthesizer taste in this track, and a nice underlying storyline about enlightenment surrounding the monks in the album.

Alex Toth , Adam Dotson join forces on the horns with Lotus and CX for ‘Deep Inside the Mothership’. Mr. Lif makes two appearances on this album with the tracks ‘Different Dream’ and ‘Simplify Unwind’.

In 2010, Gift of Gab was performing at an event I was helping host. We ended up becoming good friends, and when Luke mentioned working with Gab in 2012, I was pumped to hear the material. ‘Another World’ was well worth the wait. The track complimented Gab’s rhythmic flow well. It is the genie in the bottle track.

Overall the “Monks” album is must-have for any record collection large or small, digital or vinyl. It is an album for the ages.