H E A R__I T

"A Machine in India"
from the Flaming Lips' "Zaireeka"
(576k)

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T A B L E__T A L K

Are you a closet heavy metal fan? Come out and head bang in the Music section of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

X
Beyond and Back: The X Anthology
Elektra
(12/11/97)

Various Artists
Paint It, Blue: Songs of the Rolling Stones
House of Blues
(12/10/97)

Bush
Deconstructed (Techno remixes of album material)
Trauma/Interscope
(12/09/97)

Barbra Streisand
Higher Ground
Columbia
(12/08/97)

Various Artists
Closed on Account of Rabies
Mouth Almighty/Mercury
(12/04/97)

BROWSE THE
MUSIC ARCHIVES

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V O W E L L

Sound Salvation
By Sarah Vowell
Survey says ...
Give the people what they want
(12/12/97)

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F E A T U R E

Paint it black
By David Bowman
A prayer for His Holy Hipness, Johnny Cash
(12/05/97)

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flaming lips

- - - - - - - - - - - - > Z A I R E E K A_[ W A R N E R_B R O S. ]

BY MARK ATHITAKIS | If you've spent any amount of time in the suburbs, you're probably familiar with that odd creature known as the Weird Kid Down the Block. Weird Kids were the ones who had a little too much fun with anthills and magnifying glasses on bright summer days, the kids who spun around in circles until they either puked or fainted or both. What ever happens to them? Apparently, a few of them found each other in Oklahoma and, since 1985, have been making lysergic, absurdist alt-rock as the Flaming Lips ever since, even landing a minor hit in 1993 with "She Don't Use Jelly." But even that wasn't quite enough, and with "Zaireeka," they've completely fulfilled their most insane dreams, creating a fantastically ambitious record. Well, as Weird Kid ambitions go, anyway.

You see, as the cover label deadpans, "Zaireeka" is "a unique recording." Its eight songs are drawn and quartered and split over four CDs -- the idea being that you play all four together, at the same time. As singer/songwriter Wayne Coyne explains in liner notes that make "The Unabomber Manifesto" seem lucid and rational, the album is his attempt to meld the sound of a collapsing civilization (he posits Zaire) with the joy of musical discovery (eureka!). Coyne suggests that "Zaireeka" can be listened to a disc at a time, but listening to it that way is jarring and amusical; long periods of silence are broken by a random cymbal crash or a country-esque croon, making it the dumbest box set in recorded history. So I gathered three brave friends as well as the necessary four CD players and eight speakers, and played it the way it was meant to be played. In its proper context, "Zaireeka" actually improved somewhat: It was even more jarring, even more amusical.

There are some actual "songs" on the record. "Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now)" is a moody, synthesizer-and-piano-based ditty marked by Coyne's perpetual reaching for high notes he can't hit, and "A Machine in India" is a folky, languorous ballad that actually sustains itself over 10 minutes. But mostly, the Flaming Lips are having self-indulgent fun with the limits of digital sound and conceptual experimenting that, while interesting, mostly inspire a sense of frustration; the listener in charge of disc No. 3 demanded a stiff drink about halfway through the proceedings. Even apart from Coyne's schizoid lyrics ("All that I think, all I thought, and all I know the Syrian missile guides itself into the vaginas"), it's hard to see what the point is of the ear-piercing low-frequency hums that open "How Will We Know? (Futuristic Crashendos)," the drum solo of "March of the Rotten Vegetables" that circles around the speakers like a cut-rate Pink Floyd laser show or the cacophony of barking dogs that ends the album-closing "The Big Ol' Bug is the New Baby Now."

It's possible that one play (performance?) of "Zaireeka" wasn't quite fair to the album. Given multiple listenings, the album may very well give up secrets about itself that could make it a work of genius. But even after my headache subsided and I apologized to my friends for making them listen to it, I didn't feel possessed to play the damn thing ever again in an all-at-once manner. Musically, it sounds no better or worse than any other Flaming Lips record; their 1995 album "Clouds Taste Metallic" offers the same psychotic results without all the technological hassle. And conceptually? The same thing, just all at once: stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.
SALON | Dec. 12, 1997