Flying Lotus, the first professional act performing at tonight’s concert, is not a band, as you might expect from its name. Instead, it’s a he—Steven Ellison, to be exact, a music producer and laptop musician. When the W.I.L.D. lineup was first announced, I tried to put together some mental picture to represent Flying Lotus. I thought of pink pond flowers floating majestically towards an abyss of blue.

I tried to explain this to a girl in my Writing 1 class. To my ramblings she eloquently responded: “Sounds kind of trippy.”

Later that day, my curiosity got the better of me. Surfing YouTube, I casually typed “Flying Lotus” into the search bar. Immediately, a drop-down list of suggested videos appeared. “Parisian Goldfish” grabbed my attention, so I decided to click the link. Turns out that “kind of trippy” is a pretty adequate description of what FlyLo (a moniker used by the musician’s fans) is all about.

To understand the sounds Flying Lotus puts out, think of all of the different types of music in the world today, mash them together and coat that mix with a techno sheen. That’s Flying Lotus. He has released three full albums since 2006 and twice as many EPs. His vibe is summarized on his Wikipedia page, in the sidebar that lists what instruments he plays. Not only does he play more traditional instruments such as a keyboard and electronic instruments like drum machines and synthesizers, but he also plays the Macintosh, referring to the computer company. Weird.

When I sat down and pondered the choices for W.I.L.D. this spring, suddenly everything made sense. On one hand, you have Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, a group that draws from stripping down their music and offers simple folk. On the other, you have Flying Lotus, a musician who flourishes in the complex.

Hippie versus trippy. Kind of has a nice ring to it, right?