at a glance...

Hometown: Oklahoma City, OK
Year Formed: 1984

Members:
Wayne Coyne -vocals, guitars, all sorts of other stuff
Steven Drozd -drums, vocals, all sorts of other stuff
Michael Ivins -bass, vocals, all sorts of other stuff

Bands In The Family:
Mercury Rev
Those Bastard Souls

Notes:
Wayne Coyne started The Flaming Lips with his older brother Mark in 1984, with Mark soon departing. They released a serious of demented, off-kilter psychedelic pop albums with excessively long titles. In 1991 they signed with Warner Brothers and released several demented, off-kilter psychedelic pop albums with slightly shorter titles. In 1994 "She Don't Use Jelly" somehow landed them in the Top 40, all over MTV and on "Beverly Hills 90210." The insanity of Clouds Taste Metallic saw the Lips recede back into obscurity, a position consolidated by the release of Zaireeka, an album recorded in four-part sound which required four stereos and allowed for on-the-fly mixing by the listener. Two years later, the band returned with the ambitious, orchestral The Soft Bulletin, this time all on one CD.

"This is spooky... Turn it down!" my wife says. No, we're not watching Poltergeist with the volume cranked up. We're experiencing a soundtrack, but it's from the movie playing in the head of The Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne. As I turn down three of Zaireeka's 4 CD players to appease her, the opening "Okay I'll Admit That I Don't Really Understand" segues into the next song's refrain of "You're invisible now..." Somehow, through the incomprehensible cavalcade of invisible auditory signals, I hear an instrument or two from the only corner where I don't have a CD playing. This is mind-altering stuff. As the liner notes warn, "This recording... on rare occasion has caused the listener to become disoriented."

The cacophony of "Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair" fades into the placid intro of "A Machine In India," and my wife peeks in, obviously much more relaxed. A mood-altering masterpiece, this. The chaos returns on "The Train Runs Over The Camel But Is Derailed By The Gnat," and her reaction switches back to one of "Whoa! This is way too much! This gives me vertigo!" Sure enough, "How Will We Know?" treats us to an earful of piercing high frequencies. Coyne purports that listening to them may lead to clairvoyance, but my ears just hurt. "March Of The Rotten Vegetables" dishes out a buzz like a swarm of bees stuck in a plastic tube. My wife's eyes finally close, and we've reached the final 'tune' - "The Big Ol' Bug Is The New Baby Now." I start wondering what kinds of drugs the Lips had lying around the studio. I haven't listened to this opus yet under the influence, but trust me - it works on its own. I won't give away the surprise ending of the record, but the frenzy of contrasts hits its peak, and my wife doesn't even wake up. So that's Zaireeka for you - thesis, antithesis, synthesis, thesis, and so on. As Coyne phrases it, "anarchy meets inspiration, or maybe a mess with a purpose..." Call it what you will, but call it thought provoking, and great.

If you like Zaireeka, check out:
The Flaming Lips Clouds Taste Metallic
The Flaming Lips Hit To Death In The Future Head
The Flaming Lips Transmissions From The Satellite Heart
The Flaming Lips In A Priest Driven Ambulance
The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin
The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Mercury Rev Yerself Is Steam
Spiritualized Pure Phase
Frank Zappa We're Only In It For The Money
Jimi Hendrix Are You Experienced?
Syd Barrett The Madcap Laughs

-- Lars Rosenblum-Sorgenfrei