The Flaming Lips
http://www.flaminglips.com
styles: experimental rock, psychedelic rock, noise pop,
alternative rock
others: Mercury Rev, Spiritualized, Grandaddy
Yoshimi
Battles the Pink Robots
Warner Bros, 2002
rating: 8.2
reviewer: clement coleman
The clearest illustration of the qualities of the new Flaming Lips LP,
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, can be found on the album’s cover. Depicted
in broad strokes is, well, a pink robot, and, ah, a girl in a little
dress--Yoshimi to be sure. This is candy-coated Japanimation, but delivered in
lush painterly tones. Hello Kitty via Willem DeKooning, and it reflects the
contents of the record handsomely.
The Flaming Lips are an experimental noise- rock band who experimented
themselves into a broader spotlight in 1999 with their full-blown pop opera
entitled The Soft Bulletin. The Bulletin was a critical favorite,
and it ended the year in many "best-of" charts. The challenge of course comes
with the follow-up, and The Lips have arrived at a conceit to elevate them
beyond the clutches of the ghosts of Bulletin.
The Flaming Lips have established themselves as an exploratory trio unafraid to
imagine themselves in new rolls. They should be famous by now firstly for
subverting and re-inventing the rock show by touring with boom boxes and
headphones instead of guitars and drums. Likewise, they’ve refigured the concept
of "stereo surround- sound" with their LP Zaireeka (1997), which was a
4-disc set whose individual discs were intended to be played at the same time in
the same room. With Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the Flaming Lips
have done something less than revolutionary: they have rendered an acutely
pleasant long player.
On Yoshimi, the Lips are as concerned with music that’s been released
since Bulletin, as with The Bulletin itself. Those Radiohead
records, Spiritualized, etc., and all of Jim O’Rourke’s bands (is there a band
that Jim O’Rourke isn’t a member of?). This is to our benefit, because the Lips
are a thoughtful and attentive bunch who really listen when others are talking.
As a result, the Lips have constructed a simpler, groovier album of concision
and composure. That said, there are moments when Yoshimi seems redundant,
and that is hard to forgive after Bulletin, which never faltered, from
the first note to the last. The Lips used to be a band you’d listen to for the
songs. After Zaireeka and The Bulletin, they’ve become an album
band. I’m unsure how Yoshimi declares itself in this context.
As a follow up to Bulletin, however, Yoshimi is a generous disc.
While The Bulletin felt dire and tragic, Yoshimi, for all its
battle hymns and drama, is far lighter fare. Gone are the cavernous
reverberations and bombastic choirs of Bulletin, gone is the pleading and
bleeding from Wayne Coyne’s sufferable throat. Instead we have highly polished
veneers, songs built hermetic and airless, and a singer turning in a calm,
pocketed performance. This is a pastoral record, but a synthetic one as well.
Contained in this record are the trappings of a science fiction narrative, and
while The Bulletin examined the dynamics of life and death on the ground,
Yoshimi is a bubblegum illustration of conflict in outer space. The songs
are thematic thumbnails at best, and any glimpse at a storyline is abandoned by
the fifth track. Yoshimi feels casual like a child’s home-spun
play, and it goes down easy. There are in the lyrics to these songs some of the
same portentous concerns that were common to Bulletin. But the smooth
surfaces of these compositions, and the softly throbbing rhythms, make the
content feel immaterial, or delightful.
More playfulness found upfront: Yoshimi P-we is the name of a musician who
appears on this record. She’s one of the drummers for the Boredoms, Japan’s most
widely exported psychedelic prog band, and she screams and shouts across the
title track of the album. Are these layers of meaning, or meaninglessness? The
Lips are having fun, and fun is good.
Like the earliest incarnations of sibling band Mercury Rev, the Flaming Lips
continue a dialogue with cinema that sometimes seems to overwhelm the artists.
Yoshimi feels like one of those multi-million dollar films that amount to
nothing. Lots of space pistols, lots of filtered lenses, but no story, no
character. Yoshimi is the soundtrack to the greatest lousy Saturday
afternoon movie never made. Yoshimi is the lush brushstrokes that define
the most childish themes, an opera into a comic book, or a comic book into an
opera. Just look at the cover.
1. Fight Test
2. One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21
3. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt. 1
4. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt. 2
5. In the Morning of the Magicians
6. Ego Tripping At the Gates of Hell
7. Are You A Hypnotist??
8. It's Summertime
9. Do You Realize??
10. All We Have Is Now
11. Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)
The Soft Bulletin
Warner Bros, 1999
rating: 9.3
reviewer: mr p
The Soft Bulletin is absolutely stunning. Zaireeka was a massive breakthrough for them, but
Soft Bulletin is the true gem in their catalog. They have definitely perfected the sound that makes up the
present day Flaming
Lips. Every note is perfectly crafted; from the slightly reverberated guitars to the distorted mechanical
drumming, The Flaming Lips have fused together the raw sound of the past with
the futuristic sounds of the present.
Brilliant lyrics and beautiful soundscapes shape the album into a musical orgy. Wayne
Coyne's distinct voice slices confidently through the mix with tales of spiders and
mosquito bites.
The song structures on Soft Bulletin are close to where they left off on Zaireeka
(in fact, some of the songs are leftovers from the Zaireeka sessions).
The songs are often
unpredictable and full of crazy tangents. Each song is epic and inspiring -- I listen in
awe every time "The Spark That Bled" shoots through my ears. "Feeling
Yourself Disintegrate", "Suddenly Everything Has Changed", and
"A Spoonful Weighs a Ton" are equally amazing and will leave you with
drool dripping from your chin.
The only downfall is their choice to
put two alternate versions of songs at the end of the album. But despite this minute imperfection,
The
Soft Bulletin provides an exquisite soundtrack to have blasting in the car
at night. Guaranteed to give you a magical boner.
1. Race for the Prize [Remix]
2. A Spoonful Weighs a Ton
3. The Spark That Bled
4. The Spiderbite Song
5. Buggin' [Remix]
6. What Is the Light?
7. The Observer
8. Waitin' for a Superman
9. Suddenly Everthing Has Changed
10. The Gash
11. Feeling Yourself Disintegrate
12. Sleeping on the Roof
13. Race for the Prize
14. Waitin' for a Superman [Remix]
Zaireeka
Warner Bros., 1997
rating: 8.5
reviewer: mr p
Zaireeka is the first multiple sound source record and the first that
"can cause a person to become disoriented, confused or nauseated."
It's a quadruple disc album that has the same songs on each disc, but the unique
part is that each CD contains different parts of a song. In order to get the
full listening experience, you must listen to all four CDs at the same time,
which also means you need four CD players. Although, the amount of discs you
choose to play is completely up to you; it's designed to provide at least some
sort of listening experience, despite the amount of CDs.
Invented by frontman
Wayne Coyne, the Flaming Lips have created one of the weirdest rock albums ever.
Sound impractical and troublesome? You got that right; since there are
discrepancies between different CD players (cheaper ones go faster than
expensive ones), it's near impossible to get the songs to sync perfectly. But
once you manage to get all 4 CDs going (or at least 3), the effect is nothing
short of mind blowing. This four disc musical mutant doesn't let the listener
remain passive, it constantly begs for the listener to get engaged with the
music.
Picture this... You're sitting in the middle of a room surrounded by four
stereos and it's up to you to keep the music in sync. After several failed
attempts, you manage to sync the four CDs together. Four minutes into the song,
you notice a system playing faster than the others, so you quickly run to the
system and press pause/play a couple times in order to get the system back in
sync. You make it just in time to hear the chorus of the climactic "Riding
to Work In the Year 2025 (You're Invisible Now)".
Yeah, it's a lot of
work just to hear a song, but the feeling is indescribable when it is done
correctly. Even to hear just 2 minutes of perfectly synced music is more
rewarding than you might think. When was the last time you listened to a CD
where your actions dictated the outcome?
As far as the actual music on the CD,
the shift in style from Clouds Taste Metallic to Zaireeka is one
giant leap. Pregnant with sweeping orchestral arrangements and other alien
noises, Zaireeka is similar to Soft Bulletin, but even more
experimental.
Yes, the concept of Zaireeka can be annoying, and at times
frustrating, but the music is amazing and the infinite musical possibilities
from these four CDs cause the album to never lose its new car smell. Think of
this album as a presentation of music, or musical event, rather than just sounds
coming from speakers. Rumor has it that Zaireeka will be released on DVD
(because most DVD players are equipped with at least four speakers); this way
the listener will be able to hear the album as it was meant to be heard for the
first time. Until then, have fun failing to sync the CDs together. My
recommendation: don't even try using a discman.
1. Okay I'll Admit That I Really Don't...
2. Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now)
3. Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair
4. A Machine in India
5. The Train Runs over the Camel But Is...
6. How Will We Know?
7. March of the Rotten Vegetables
8. The Big Ol' Bug Is the New Baby Now
|