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This is Part Two of The Flaming Lips Discography. For Part One, click here.

After the rousing success of albums like Transmissions From The Satellite Heart and Clouds Taste Metallic, the Flaming Lips has already established themselves on the pop music radar as being a thoroughly unique voice and vision on the music landscape. They had jumped the early hurdles that most every band faces and broken free; pop fans had been turned on to a totally different possibility for expression in the increasingly narrowing field of alternative rock.

As they'd show in the late Nineties, however, the band was only getting started.

Wild experimentations (both of the chemical and sonic varieties) would become the benchmark of each successive release that came from Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd and Michael Ivins after Clouds Taste Metallic and, with each one, the band's influence only proceeded to grow ever-larger; the albums were becoming more idea driven which meant the band was free to traverse as far into left field as it wanted. As that progression continued though, the band found themselves gaining a growing number of followers every step of the way; with each undiscovered country they touched, they would find a few more lost travelers that would fall in step behind them. In that way, the late Nineties could be viewed as a sort of golden age for the band; by 1996, they'd broken free but, after that, the announcement of another Flaming Lips album was (and continues to be) met with renewed excitement. The precedent had been set for audiences not knowing what would come next, only that it would be something very different and remarkable but, at the same time too, the band was also taking time to look back and help new fans unfamiliar with the map that got the band to where they are connect the dots and get the most complete possible story. As part two in Ground Control's examination of The Flaming Lips proves too, the band has never faltered or failed to deliver in that ongoing tradition.


Zaireeka (4CD)
(Warner Brothers, 1997)

After the album cycle to promote Clouds Taste Metallic ended, it was clear that it was time for The Flaming Lips to make some changes. By then, the band had toured near-ceaselessly for four years (three tours behind Transmissions From The Satellite Heart, one behind Clouds Taste Metallic) and the band members were just tired; guitarist Ronald Jones had left the band in late 1996 citing the onset of acute agoraphobia (the documentary on The Flaming Lips, Fearless Freaks, contends that the guitarist's departure was actually due to paranoia about drummer Steven Drozd's drug use though) and morale in the group was declining rapidly. The Flaming Lips had reached that point so many other bands do when music ceases to be one hundred percent fun; rock music wasn't a challenge anymore, and the band was missing that internal sense of discovery and joy at creation; the band had become work—it was no longer play.

Zaireeka is the sonic embodiment of “play” and a return for the band to ideas—rather than musical or business-minded principles—being the driving force behind creation. Initially inspired by Wayne Coyne's “parking lot experiments” (where the singer would get as many as fifty cars to congregate in a multi-level garage and then play back cassettes of specially recorded music to create a sort of “tape deck symphony”—there's a recording of one song from one of those performances on the 20 Years Of Weird compilation), Zaireeka is a four-disk set designed in such a way that all four discs are to be played back simultaneously on four individual players, thereby going one step past surround sound and into the realm of three-dimensional sound (whereby, depending on where you are in a given room, one sound source will be cleaner and more prominent). Because there is a human element to the playback experience of this recording, (four CD players operating simultaneously require four hands, so at least two people—it is literally a party record), there is the possibility for error but, with a little teamwork, trial and error, it is possible to get it to work and have a few laughs as your party irons out the creases in its execution.

[Editor's note: The critic responsible for this review cheated in his playback execution of Zaireeka. Having neither four hands nor four CD players, he found another way: using Garageband, all four discs were mixed together track-by-track for perfectly synchronous playback and, thanks to the program's intuitive EQ, a mix was produced that it can be assumed is correct and faithful to the projected intentions of the band for a four-player presentation.]

As much as the ideas behind the eight songs that comprise Zaireeka were the guiding force behind the album's creation, there's little doubt in listening to the results that novelty is a key component to an audience's enjoyment of it. Simply said, the songs aren't the best material that The Flaming Lips have ever released; the lyric sheets are elementary and spare, few (if any) of the elements that originally drew audiences to the band (other than their unrepentant oddness) are present and even the basic dynamics that tend to govern pop music (verse-chorus-verse structures, notably) are hard to find. That isn't to say that Zaireeka is an album of pure, unstructured sound, only that it's of far looser construct; because the ideas are the principles of the thing, the tracks are of a far more abstract and “oh wow” design.

...You're been sufficiently warned.

Happily, while the structures don't bother to hold the songs together, each of Zaireeka's eight tracks do give listeners plenty to say, “Oh wow,” and, “Gee whiz” about. From the opening cascade of “Okay I'll Admit That I Really Don't Understand,” open-minded listeners are swept away by a muscular wall of sound that gets progressively more monolithic and dense as it progresses. It all becomes breathtaking as a multitude of sounds including odd whirling whistles, sighing vocal choruses and mercurial keys each tune up and weigh in to be noticed and crest before parting to reveal Wayne Coyne, his acoustic guitar and a tongue-in-cheek sentiment that guides this overture, “Okay I'll Admit That I Really Don't Understand.”

The song is a warm-up and lead-in for listeners to get acclimated to the experience; in it, they're asked (without directly asking) to buckle in and hold on tight if they're game because it only gets more ambitious from here.

Those that buy the ticket are thrust right into the ride from there with “Riding To Work In The Year 2025.” Utilizing every sound source at its disposal, The Flaming Lips layer and edit together a dynamic aural panorama and proceeds to play with it in such a way that there's no mistaking just how expansive it is; sources pan across the aural spectrum, sounds surface and take the focus of listeners before slipping into the background to let others come forward, some parts echo through to give listeners the impression that there's more to them but they're far off in the distance and so are incapable of sounding through properly, other sounds appear and then vanish... it is the best exposition of a complete aural plain ever committed for consumption.

It never collapses or shrinks down either. As the album continues on, the Lips guide listeners to different corners and emotional points in this world believably. Planes approach and take off right over the heads of those listening in “Thirty-Five Thousand Feet Of Despair.” Strange orchestral bits creep around the edges of and threaten to overtake “A Machine In India” (which, apparently, is a song about the mild form of mania that Wayne Coyne's wife experiences during her menstrual cycle—according to the singer). The whole world cross-pans and relocates itself from left to right on “March Of The Rotten Vegetables .” It's a genuinely surreal experience as a listener can't help but gravitate to a sound (after years of listening to music, our brains seem to be programmed to do it) and tries to chase it through the aural spectrum only to have the sound evaporate or crumble when it's within reach. The funny thing is that the band seems to have planned it that way; at each turn taking the opportunity to mess with the palettes of those listening (the reason there is a warning on the cover of the album is, in part, because some of the ambient, high-frequency sounds found in “How Will We Know” that have been known to cause disorientation) and stretch the boundaries of what ANYONE has done on a commercially available recording. To be fair, it does make for a listening experience quite unlike any other which will thrill some fans and frustrate others horribly.

At the time of its release, fans weren't sure what to make of Zaireeka (many still aren't) and, as a result, the album has since taken the stature of a thoroughly unique, cult experience that is both reveled in and reviled. The reasoning for both opinions is perfectly valid; on one hand, Zaireeka is the height of opulent recording done for the sake of opulence, and it's an incredible experiment and experience on the other. Regardless though, Zaireeka successfully illustrates that the only limitation The Flaming Lips are constrained by is the limit of their own imaginations.

A Collection Of Songs Representing An Enthusiasm For Recording... By Amateurs
(Restless, 1998)

After fifteen years and a few significant successes that found The Flaming Lips attain the position of being the most marketable and highest profile cult band to emerge from the wreckage of alternative and grunge rock, it seemed like a summation of where the band came from was in order. The title of the comp, A Collection Of Songs Representing An Enthusiasm For Recording... By Amateurs, is remarkably apt and keeping with singer Wayne Coyne's reputed sense of honesty; calling ...By Amateurs a 'greatest hits' would be too strong because there were no 'hits' before 1993. There was a lot of music though, and this album pulls together some of the better early moments along with some previously unreleased material, live cuts and covers.

As with so many other releases of its type, ...By Amateurs is characterized more by what's absent from the set than what's actually there. The album collects a smattering of songs from as far back as the self-titled EP (the sort-of groovy “Bag Full Of Thoughts” is here), but the selection of album cuts from the first few albums seems almost arbitrary; “Jesus Shootin' Heroin” is present from Hear It Is but the far better (and moodier) “With You” is not. Conversely, “One Million Billionth Of A Millisecond on a Sunday Morning” is the sole entry to ...By Amateurs from Oh My Gawd!!! as “Chrome Plated Suicide” and “Michael Time To Wake Up” are the only representatives from Telepathic Surgery while “God Walks Among Us Now” and “Unconsciously Screamin'” are the only tracks that mark the existence of In A Priest Driven Ambulance here—it's just a generally unusual selection.

It goes without saying that ...By Amateurs can't be regarded as a 'greatest hits,' 'set of pretty good songs' or even an “all that we were capable of at the time” compilation. There were some better songs to be found on the early records. There were better ideas. The best explanation for the choice in album cuts that appears on ...By Amateurs is that they fit together reasonably well and could function as a sort of running monologue for where the band would later be headed. It's not at all representative but, rather, attempts to whet the appetite of listeners; essentially saying, “If this appeals to you, there are more—and better ones—to be found on our early records. But try these to see if it's worth it to you to find them. If you like these songs, you won't be disappointed by the early records.”

If one looks at the assembled album cuts on ...By Amateurs that way, it makes at least passable sense, though long-time fans will scoff at the selections, and rightly so.

Those sorts of fans might not want to admit it and might hate themselves a little for it, but they won't be able to turn away from the set of rare oddities that populates the second half of ...By Amateurs. Culling some live and studio engineered covers as well as a couple of “interesting” experiments, the album will be at least partially redeemed in the eyes of the faithful, if only because the songs are available outside of the province of bootleg mediocrity.

To be fair, the previously unreleased tracks are at least partially worth the price of admission. “Ma I Didn't Notice” finds Wayne & Co. attempting a sort of textural/ethereal distinction similar to that of Sonic Youth (and better by far than the cover of “Death Valley '69” that shows up here, originally BY Sonic Youth) while “I Want To Kill My Brother, The Cymbal Head” stirs up an honestly affecting instrumental torrent that is epic in its own way as the guitars contrast The Who against The Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth. It's really bizarre, of course, but each of those songs is bizarre and good in their own ways.

The covers, on the other hand, are far more sketchy. The B-side from Sub Pop's “Drug Machine” single would have been far better had the Lips elected to play Elvis Costello's “Peace, Love And Understanding” all the way through rather than prefacing it with half of The Sonics' “Strychnine” while the covers of “Death Valley '69” and Led Zeppelin's “Thank You” are just too much of an okay-in-a-pinch thing. Those that hang around long enough to get to the Neil Young cover of “After The Gold Rush” might be passably entertained but, by then, any appreciation that a listener might have for it is well and severely tarnished; hope and belief will only take one so far.

That said, one has to ask why this compilation exists. It has long been upheld (by virtually everyone in the music business) that compilations issued by still-active bands serve one of three purposes: to re-ignite in flagging catalog sales, to buy a band time to finish the troublesome new album that a band is working on or to recoup costs incurred by the band. As it turns out, A Collection Of Songs Representing An Enthusiasm For Recording...By Amateurs most likely served all three; re-igniting interest in the back catalog would carry the potential of more money coming in; there must have been some outstanding cost from the making of Zaireeka (it is said that the Lips diverted half of the budget for the album scheduled to follow it into Zaireeka and, even now, while the unwieldy album is good, it hasn't sold well—advance orders broke the production even but the most recent numbers only show sales of about 30, 000 units), and The Soft Bulletin wouldn't appear until May 1999, so while this comp bought the band a little time, it did little else other than get the band into the green. That might seem like an incredibly harsh and/or cynical viewpoint to take for any record but, in the case of ...By Amateurs, it's the one that fits best.

The Soft Bulletin
(Warner Brothers, 1999)

It may have taken a few colossal turns and creative re-imaginings to get there, bu when The Flaming Lips resurfaced with The Soft Bulletin on May 17, 1999, the myriad dots and clues that the band had dropped since guitarist Ronald Jones abandoned ship in 1996 finally came together. Back as a three-piece (no full-time guitarist, and drummer Steven Drozd had switched over to “multi-instrumentalist” status), The Soft Bulletin is the band's first expression of a new idea and direction; taking some of the ideas that first began gestating on Zaireeka (a greater emphasis on keyboards and electronics, rock n' roll abandoned as a form for a unique, enormous and expansive permutation of space rock with pop, electroclash and ambient inclinations), The Flaming Lips refine their concept to accommodate a more singer-songwriter-ly approach.

In many ways, the album could be regarded as the group's first mature work. Most obviously, Wayne Coyne's vocals SOUND older as the timbres get a little reedy when he reaches beyond his vocal register in songs like “A Spoonful Weighs A Ton,” “The Spiderbite Song,” “Waitin' For Superman” and (the very telling) “Suddenly Everything Has Changed” and the lyrics often relate to true events (“The Spiderbite Song” tells the story of Steven Drozd nearly having his arm amputated when a heroin injection site that he claimed was a spider bite became infected) even if they're often too fantastic to be believed. These changes are subtle compared with the substantially larger shift in instrumental values, but of equal or greater impact on the shift that the band has made; songs like “She Don't Use Jelly,” “Chrome Plated Suicide,” “Brainville” or “Gingerale Afternoon” may have been based on true events (or, at least, Coyne's interpretations of them) but there's an unavoidable grain of reality embedded into The Soft Bulletin that's exploded to epic proportions and made fantastic here.

That overall shape and presentation is still another significant change for the band—there's a straight-faced wonderment to it that the band shares with listeners instead of trying to produce it in or coax it out of them. The band would have previously used these new ideas to toy with or taunt listeners (as has been the case with each preceding turn they've taken), but this time the band seeks to present the songs without novelty; or, at least, not with unabashed novelty hung in plain view for listeners to stare at. Rather, The Soft Bulletin presents the image of a band caught in ecstatic amazement with a desire make audiences feel that way too; when it comes right down to it, The Flaming Lips present beautiful, spiritually agitated music with fantastic flourishes on The Soft Bulletin with an invitation open to let listeners share in their joy of discovery.

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
(Warner Brothers, 2002)

With Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, somehow Plato's cave allegory—or rather, an extension of it—seems to become prescient once again. For nineteen years, the band had toiled furiously, attempting to relate to and identify with the shadows cast by independent rock institutions as they moved past the other side of the fire. They achieved a synthesis of that perceived design on In A Priest Driven Ambulance and, by Transmissions From The Satellite Heart, they had broken free; no longer bound by the constraints of geography or limited by indie production dollar values, The Flaming Lips were allowed to stand on their own and start to recognize firsthand the beings and objects casting the shadows, but they were still locked in the underground caves. They explored and learned what else was down there through Clouds Taste Metallic—tasting and experiencing what was available and showing what they had to offer as they went, but certainly trying to find their way out of those darkened confines too. Zaireeka represents the image of Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd and Michael Ivins reaching the lip of the cave; the bright light burned their eyes and the multitude of stimuli was staggering—no wonder it took four discs to contain it all. The band's eyes adjusted to the new bright lights though, and The Soft Bulletin was the first notice that the band had arrived safely, and they were beginning to manipulate and fabricate some new objects of their own as they grew accustomed to this new life.

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is a work several steps beyond the cave. Now free to traverse the musical spectrum, The Flaming Lips begin to make all-new myths and tell new stories of their experiences and dreams from the standpoint of seasoned travellers.

Yoshimi is less an album of music than it is an experience and portal for listeners into a completely autonomous narrative world created by the band. In it, there are already enormous crowds excited by the spectacle they're witnessing (check the beginning of “Fight Test”) and fantastic objects and events surrounded by buzzing life and action. The sounds presented articulate a sprawling metropolis as different found sounds (snippets of foreign language dialogue, electronic beats, gurgling synths, odd and disembodied but excited screaming, unusually plastic or canned sounding strings and more) swirl around the real-time musicians in songs like the title track, “Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell,' “Are You A Hypnotist??” and “Do You Realize??” and co-mingle seamlessly with the songs to give listeners the impression that they're listening to life from a distance more than they are partaking of something themselves. Because of the way the songs play and the way that the musicians appear in the environment, there appears to be a third plain evident; the band seems closer to the ones wearing headphones than they are to the bustling aural landscape behind them. Of course, they do relate with that landscape (Coyne's acoustic guitar seems to melt at the end of each phrasing when it gets too close to the background in “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots part 1”), but they aren't exactly part of it; they're as much observers as those listening at home are, but they stand between listeners and the animated background.

As the record progresses, the travelers do get increasingly drawn and threaten to be absorbed into the beautiful images and sounds they're witnessing (there is a familiar yearning implied in “In The Morning Of The Magicians”—similar to that which David Bowie betrayed in “Space Oddity” and then proceeded to chase for decades) but they never quite lose themselves or dissolve into their surroundings. Instead, the band learns to harmonize with them and, when they do, it's a most joyous noise to behold (“Do You Realize??”); the inter-relation between the band and this landscape they've imagined for themselves is incredibly gratifying somehow when that balance is achieved.

That gratification proved to be universal outside of the narrative landscape too. As much ground as The Flaming Lips may have made into the mainstream previously, it was dwarfed by the reception that Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots enjoyed upon its release. While the album didn't chart remarkably well (it ascended to number 50 on the US charts and number thirteen in the UK and went gold in both as well as in Australia), it did become the undisputed winner of the most public recognition and commercial fanfare for the band to date; while the album is one of three Flaming Lips albums to ever go gold, it is the only one to go gold in three countries, the song “Do You Realize??” was licensed for several major advertising campaigns (including by Hewlett-Packard) and appeared in feature films and television shows including How To Deal, 50 First Dates and Emmerdale. “Fight Test” became the theme song for the cartoon 3 South. While the second single from the album, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots part 1” would become the highest charting single from the album (reaching number 18 in the UK), “Do You Realize??” would take the most distinguished honor when it was adopted as the Official Rock Song of Oklahoma years after the album's release in 2009. Without meaning to sound redundant, the accolades offered the band for the album were numerous and glowing and, as they continue to roll in even now, it can only be said that, while no one could have seen this scale of popular appeal coming to the record while it was being recorded, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots catapulted The Flaming Lips onto an plain of creative recognition populated by very few; without meaning to at all, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots made The Flaming Lips into legends.

Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid 1983—1988 3CD
(Restless/Ryko, 2002)

With the success of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots came a windfall of interest to The Flaming Lips, and as has been the case with so many other bands that have experienced a sudden influx of popular attention (it happened to Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and Green Day to name only a few), the record labels that the band once called home were happy to reissue some back story material to bring those listeners newly acquainted with the band up to speed.

While it is unwieldy, there's no denying the value of the three-disc monster, Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid. Compiling The Flaming Lips' albums released between between 1983 to 1988 (the self-titled EP, Hear It Is, Oh My Gawd!!! and Telepathic Surgery), ...Taking Acid is a thorough and decent telling of The Flaming Lips: The Early Years story for the unfamiliar, but those expecting some goodies previously abandoned in the vaults will be left wanting.

The Flaming Lips EP, Hear It Is and Oh My Gawd!!! all paint the portrait of a band growing into its own acid-infused but poppy skin with all the slips, falls, mistakes and ticks typically associated with such a growth period. There are successes and questionable moments dotting each of these releases of course (the first half of Hear It Is qualifies as essential, as is virtually all of Telepathic Surgery and some of the singles and album cuts in between, but an equal amount of material has the label 'For Completists Only' firmly affixed), but such was also the case with the original releases and the absence of The Lips' cover of “Summertime Blues” that originally appeared on Hear It Is detracts mythically from the runtime here, if only because it's a really good take, missing. Not surprisingly, Telepathic Surgery is the pick of this litter, largely because it represents the point at which the going got more solid but, if that was all those in the know were interested in, Telepathic Surgery remains in print for a fraction of the sticker price that ...Taking Acid commands. At the same time, the 'bonus tracks' aren't much of a price either because many of them can be found elsewhere. A significant number of the covers that appear on Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid are also on comps like A Collection Of Songs Representing An Enthusiasm For Recording... By Amateurs that are all, again, cheaper.

So who is Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid for exactly? The set caters to two markets: first, a long-time fan (say, since Transmissions From The Satellite Heart) will be interested in ...Taking Acid because he/she wants to complete a collection and the set is attractive to the economically-minded patron that wants it all but doesn't want to run down every title. Second, the recently recruited superfans hooked by Yoshimi will salivate at the possibility of showing their support and impressing their friends. Either way, Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid does serve a market, but while many sets of this type seek to serve as large a group of people as possible by combining a mix of the album cuts for newbies and rarities for the familiar, this one somehow misses the mark; nearly everything here is available elsewhere (though the demos of the songs from Hear It Is are of passing interest, if only to hear original singer Mark Coyne take a shot at the material) and in more manageable doses with more manageable expenses to the consumer. Some fans will enjoy it, but this three-disc dynamo is just too much too soon for many.

The Day They Shot A Hole In The Jesus Egg 1989—1991 2CD
(Restless/Ryko, 2002)

It's funny that, in spite of the fact that The Day They Shot A Hole In The Jesus Egg covers less ground and fewer years than Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid does, it's of greater value to fans both old and new. How is that possible? For newer fans, Jesus Egg is golden because it includes In A Priest Driven Ambulance in its entirety. That alone is worth the price of admission but, for older fans that already have a copy of that album (and they do—if they've been around a while), Jesus Egg also includes a very different take on the songs from the album in the form of the long-lost Mushroom Tapes—a set of sessions conducted between producer Dave Fridmann and The Lips at SUNY in Fredonia, New York where Fridmann was going to school.

More than any of The Flaming Lips' other early albums, In A Priest Driven Ambulance represents a final delivery on the ideas that the band had been playing around with since 1983, but it had the added benefits of more experience, more accomplished musicianship, a confident, fully-formed persona and and (perhaps most importantly) an artistic community and peer group to bounce ideas off of. By 1989, The Flaming Lips had already made bigger friends, and it's evident on In A Priest Driven Ambulance because the more anthemic aspirations within the band register right away. It would be hard for anyone (including the band) to deny that songs including “Unconsciously Screamin',” “Rainin' Babies,” “Take Meta Mars” and “Five Step Mother Superior Rain”all owe a significant debt of influence to the Alternative Rock scene presided over by Jane's Addiction (who The Lips had joined on tour, and with whom the band would eventually share a label) while “God Walks Among Us Now” and “Mountain Side”—with their boisterous but scuzzy guitar figures supplied by Jonathan Donahue and Wayne Coyne's own growling but testosterone-free vocals—have more than a passing resemblance the the original wave of grunge bands beginning to seep out of the Pacific Northwest. In each case, The Flaming Lips do not bow or overtly swear allegiance to either camp so much as use all of the sounds inherent to both as tools to fuel their own singular vision. As they did on the records before In A Priest Driven Ambulance, The Flaming Lips were absorbing the sounds of other bands, digesting them and spitting them back as constructs uniquely their own, but recognizable too. It might have been derivative, but there's no denying the quality of the effort.

As was the case with Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid, the “bonus tracks” on disc one of The Day They Shot A Hole In The Jesus Egg yield modest returns because they're available elsewhere (“Drug Machine” was the edit done for Sub Pop's Single Of The Month Club and the B-Side, “Strychnine/Peace, Love And Understanding” is also here, and “Ma I Didn't Notice” was previously available on A Collection Of Songs Representing An Enthusiasm For Recording...By Amateurs) but, happily, at least these are better songs in general; recorded around the same time as In A Priest Driven Ambulance, they're stronger than the “Bonus Tracks” on ...Taking Acid and so do bolster this set rather than simply sit static.

'Static' plays a key role in The Mushroom Tapes that populate disc two. Originally recorded at SUNY Fredonia between tours, The Mushroom Tapes are surprisingly representative of where the band was creatively at the time and how they were operating in a live setting shortly before the sessions for In A Priest Driven Ambulance began. According to Wayne Coyne's memories (they're written in the liner notes of this album), Fridmann became another player for the band on the board at shows; wildly altering songs with mercurial level changes and hallucinogenic shifts on the fly during songs to compliment and accentuate the swells and recessions of those songs for the stage. Fridmann's tweaking made for a wild, compelling show (Coyne himself compares “God's A Wheeler Dealer” to something that Beck or Ween might do), and it was fun so it's understandable why the band would want to commit the effect to tape under the proverbial 'good mikes.'

To be fair, some of those Mushroom Tapes are worth hearing. The odd, echoey and dissonant experiments that characterize the takes of “Take Meta Mars,” “Five Stop Mother Superior Rain” and the veering, stream-of-consciousness rant “God's A Wheeler Dealer” all present a grimy and desperate version of hhe Lips that threatens to come unglued at any moment, but rather than seeming sloppy, it somehow becomes salubrious because, while seeming psychotic, at no point is there any impression left that anyone (the audience, or the band itself) is in any danger—it's just a playful act. That cross between frenzy and vaudeville is compelling and, while newer fans will be happy to have their minds expanded by In A Priest Driven Ambulance, they'll also question the legitimacy of The Mushroom Tapes. That's understandable enough—no real effort has been made to clean up the content (listeners can clearly pick out the cracks, blips and mangled tape, especially in “Take Meta Mars”) or update the production—but historians will swoon at the chance to pore over these surprisingly solid oddities (the outtake version of “Unconsciously Screamin'” in the late-playing of disc two is “Gee Whiz” neat, and Coyne sounds far less like Perry Farrell than he does in the version that appears on In A Priest Driven Ambulance, even more exciting is the performance of “Five Stop Mother Superior Rain” that closes disc two, which is the first recording to feature Steven Drozd and Ronald Jones) and discover that there were indeed some rare gems gathering dust in the archives.

Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell EP
(Warner Brothers, 2003)

In 2003, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was still cresting on some pretty significant acclaim but, just to make sure they stayed towards the top, the band continued to support and promote it as much as possible. While The Flaming Lips were already well-familiar with the promotional value of a great single or EP (they've released several of both over the duration of their career), Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell bucks convention and shifts the focus of the form to titillate fans that already purchased Yoshimi and knew it well, but couldn't resist the possibility of what Ego Tripping was promising.

First and foremost, while named for a song on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, this EP was not released to support a single as the material in support of “Do You Realize??” and “Fight Test” was; “Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell” was never formally released to radio as a single. Second, the EP ignores the custom of putting the title cut on the release; instead, two remixes of “Ego Tripping...” and one of “Do You Realize??” appear. The final convention that The Flaming Lips toss out the window (and this is what will make fans salivate) is the form of the other content on the EP; while convention previously held that a cover song or sequence of them was the norm (check “Hormoaning” by Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkins' “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” maxi-single for examples, or even the content that The Flaming Lips released themselves on the “Fight Test” EP) there are no covers on Ego Tripping..., fans will be excited by the four previously unreleased original songs instead.

Those unreleased songs are the real story here. Taking the profoundly electronic and chilly approach used for Yoshimi but expanding it further into the emotionally articulated realm normally occupied by singer-songwriters, The Flaming Lips inject a whole lot of heart and history into “Assassination Of The Sun,” “I'm A Fly In A Sunbeam,” “Sunship Balloons” and “A Change At Christmas” to offer listeners a further evolved permutation of the ideas presents on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Instantly noticeable is the change in the aural plain of the songs; with fewer sounds not associated with the songs (there are still lots of electronics here, but they no longer seem to operate independently of the tunes or the band), it's easier to pick out the contributions of Coyne, Ivins and Drozd and it all flows together easier. That tighter arrangement also lets the band branch into more generically diffuse sounds and structures without tripping (no pun intended) over anything. In “Sunship Balloons,” for example, Coyne is able to convey elegance and romance as he leans against a piano to tell his story of love and hope with the electronics supporting—rather than intruding upon—the sentiment. The difference when compared with the far more sterile push of Yoshimi is knee-buckling; in “Sunship Balloons,” the possibility the possibility of love filters more obviously and clearly into the narrative structure of The Flaming Lips' music and listeners can feel their hearts spontaneously melt. The emotional expansion and the human component in the music further asserts itself in the festive ballad “A Change At Christmas” and, as the song fades, Coyne seals the deal with listeners; when they hear him say, “I think it's all gonna work out just fine,” it's impossible not to feel reassured.

It's funny, but because of the emotional expansion made with the Ego Tripping At The Gates EP, the release finally reinvents the possibilities for the medium. In the past, an EP has only been an 'Extended Play' release, which means it is nothing more than a post-script to the ideas and forms first presented by its long-playing counterpart; it echoes the first set of precedents set forth. Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell goes further than that though—with the paradigm set forth by Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in mind, the EP goes back and wonders a heartbeat into the machine. While still impressing the idea of artificial intelligence, Ego Tripping is a further, fascinating evolution of the construct.

Artist:
www.flaminglips.com
myspace.com/flaminglips

Download:
"March Of The Rotten Vegetables" from Zaireeka - [mp3]
"Are You a Hypnotist??" from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - [mp3]
"Do You Realize??" from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots - [mp3]
"Unconsciously Screamin'" from In A Priest Driven Ambulance or The Day They Shot A Hole In The Jesus Egg - [mp3]
"Unconsciously Screamin'" from The Mushroom Tapes or The Day They Shot A Hole In The Jesus Egg - [mp3]