Mary Ann Hobbs-endorsed hip-hop-tronica maestro Flying Lotus is heading for deep space - via Bristol club night Colours.

Adam Anonymous is at ground control.

Though hyperbole has become something of a plague on the modern musical landscape, it’s hard not to stop what you’re doing when a leading authority dubs an artist ‘the Hendrix of his generation’. For genre-melting Californian hip-hop-tronica producer Flying Lotus, such praise - from Radio 1’s Mary Anne Hobbs, for the record – is part and parcel of a celebrated career to date.

Arriving from a galaxy boasting dubstep and post-J Dilla soundscapes as its twin suns, the 26-year-old, aka Steve Ellison, created a sizeable stir with breakthrough 2008 set ‘Los Angeles’. Follow-up, ‘Cosmogramma’, arrives on 3 May, the title inspired by his famed late jazz musician aunt Alice Coltrane. And although copies have, as yet, remained under lock and key at label Warp, all indications suggest another intergalactic leap forward. “It’s very epic,” Ellison explains quietly from a Canadian hotel room, in the midst of North American touring. “It’s got big string sections, lots of live instruments, and it’s very deep and operatic at times.”

With the record dubbed a ‘space opera’, extra otherworldly charm is added on ‘...And The World Laughs With You’ via stand-out guest, chief Radiohead agitator Thom Yorke. “It came about through Mary Anne Hobbs,” Ellison reveals. “She was in touch with Thom and was like ‘We’ve got to make this happen’. I sent over a couple of tracks and a few days later he sent me some vocals back. I was stunned. He was my top dream collaboration. Now I’ve got to get Prince and Björk, then I’m done.”

The line-up for his Bristol date is something of a dream, too. Promising an AV set, he’s joined for an early gig-time special at Colours by Philadelphia ‘street bass’ rascal Starkey, the latter currently prepping new opus ‘Ear Drums And
Black Holes’.

After recently celebrating a decade in the game, for his part, Ellison remains disarmingly grounded. “I was 16 when I started making tunes,” he recalls. “If you’d asked me 10 years ago, I didn’t think I’d be doing what I am now. I thought I was going to make cartoons or work on films. This was my hobby. I did it for fun, to give my homies some music. “I definitely feel like what I’m doing is important, but at the same time there’s so much room to expand and grow. When I do the next thing, it’s going to be even bigger and better.”

COLOURS IS AT THEKLA, BRISTOL ON THUR 11 MAR. SEE CLUBS DIARY FOR DETAILS.