The Flaming Lips // The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends
"How did the conversation with Ke$ha even come about?! A casual chat over a goblet of blood?"
Release Date: July 30th 2012
The Flaming Lips – The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends (Bella Union)
Wayne Coyne and his band were already orchestrating the battle between Yoshimi and some Pink Robots before I became aware of their music in 2002. There’s no shame in coming to a band late – it’s much like gorging yourself on a new box of chocolates, only to find there’s several layers of pleasure stacked underneath. By the time I was fully ensconced, at the time ‘Embryonic’ was released, the ‘Lips now had 12 studio albums under their belt, and were ready to play. In 2009, they released a track for track reinterpretation of Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, along with Stardeath, White Dwarfs, Henry Rollins and Peaches. Mad, ingenious bastards.
This year’s offering though is more accessible, but still has the eyebrows tuned to high frequency; they’ve managed to release an album of collaborations to get your pulse racing, including the slightly off-brief Ke$ha, plus a dream team of Bon Iver, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Yoko Ono, Erykah Badu and more. How did the conversation with Ke$ha even come about?! A casual chat over a goblet of blood? Indeed, it’s not only Ke$ha with the bloody fixation; Wayne’s aim for this LP was to release it with splashes of real blood from his contributors on the sleeve. Does Yoko Ono even bleed real blood? To the music…
The album rudely catapults you into a dischordant, dystopian-feel edict for futurism, courtesy of the Lips, Ke$ha and Biz Markie. It’s an assault of a track, and the second, ‘Ashes in the Air’, although still heavy on the fuzzy electronics, when paired with the ointment that is Bon Iver’s well-known vocal, gives the perfect mix of Coyne-esque psychedelia and emotional connection. Nick Cave is another inspired choice as he lends his trademark theatrics to the vocal on ‘You, Man? Human???’ ‘Do It’, featuring Yoko captures her seismic energy well, as they’d just tipped the little art pixie into a box of toys, and the other real notable track is their re-imagining of ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, with Erykah Badu gliding gracefully through the vocal. I actually think that song might be what you hear when you’re tentatively edging towards the pearly gates of heaven. Think I’m exaggerating about it / the whole album? You’re just gonna have do buy it.
9/10 Emma Garwood
