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Zaireeka

The Flaming Lips - Zaireeka Audio CD

A fair review of the The Flaming Lips "Zaireeka" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all The Flaming Lips reviews here, or go back to the The Flaming Lips tabs.

Band: The Flaming Lips
Title: Zaireeka
Rating:

Release Date: 1997-10-28
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Okay I'll Admit That I Really Don't Understand 2: Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now) 3: Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair 4: Machine in India 5: Train Runs Over the Camel But Is Derailed by the Gnat 6: How Will We Know? (Futuristic Crashendos) 7: March of the Rotten Vegetables 8: Big Ol' Bug Is the New Baby Now 9: Okay I'll Admit That I Really Don't Understand 10: Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now) 11: Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair 12: Machine in India 13: Train Runs Over the Camel But Is Derailed by the Gnat 14: How Will We Know? (Futuristic Crashendos) 15: March of the Rotten Vegetables 16: Big Ol' Bug Is the New Baby Now 17: Okay I'll Admit That I Really Don't Understand 18: Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now) 19: Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair 20: Machine in India 21: Train Runs Over the Camel But Is Derailed by the Gnat 22: How Will We Know? (Futuristic Crashendos) 23: March of the Rotten Vegetables 24: Big Ol' Bug Is the New Baby Now 25: Okay I'll Admit That I Really Don't Understand 26: Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now) 27: Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair 28: Machine in India 29: Train Runs Over the Camel But Is Derailed by the Gnat 30: How Will We Know? (Futuristic Crashendos) 31: March of the Rotten Vegetables 32: Big Ol' Bug Is the New Baby Now

Oh. My. God. DID YOU HEAR THAT???
Wayne Coyne, because he's crazy, got the completely random idea to line up a bunch of cars in a parking lot and play a bunch of cassettes in that bunch of cars. Here's a great story. He discovered all of the cassette players played perfectly in sync with each other. Then he repeated the experiment using CD players instead of cassette players, and he discovered that no two CD are ever perfectly synchronized. Ever. So then he got a really crazy idea. He decided to mix an album in the least conventional way possible. He decided that he would divide the mix over the course of four CD's, so that way you got a different perspective of each song each time you listened to it on each separate CD. Ideally, you were supposed to take all four CD's (they packaged this as a quadruple album, by the way) and listen to them on four separate CD players. That was the only way you could hear the whole thing. Of course, that also means there are fifteen different ways to listen to Zaireeka. I am both convinced that Wayne was tripping on some real hardcore acid when he recorded this thing and jealous that I didn't come up with this idea first.
And here's the thing. I've never even listened to this the way it's supposed to be experienced! I've cheated, got on YouTube, and listened to the versions they have that offer the full mix. I really want to have a Zaireeka party, I really want to have the surroundsound effect. I really do. I even have a way to play this off four different mediums (iTunes, Windows Media Player, my boom box, and the clock radio that wakes me up every morning). But as they are wont to do, the record company screwed the Lips over by only giving this album a limited release. I'm not sure if it's available in any store or not. If I see it, I fully intend to snatch it up, and play it the way it was meant to be played. But for now, I'll have to settle with the already-astonishing full YouTube version of the album, before I experiment with removing one disc, or two, or three.
Naturally, this is the most "out-there" of all Lips releases. While they had always been a rather artsy band, this album is art-rock, plain and simple. Of course it's art-rock. How could it not be? It literally challenges the way people listen to music. It defies the common perception of how music is supposed to be listened to. How is this not going to be artsy? Most of these songs are rambling suites that attempt to impress you with all the crazy sound effects they use, like the barking dogs on "The Big Ol' Bug is the New Baby Now," the screams on "Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now)," the insect noises on "A Machine in India," and the high-pitched vocalizing on "The Train Runs Over the Camel But is Derailed by the Gnat" and you know what? They succeed in impressing you, or at least impressing me. Like Pink Floyd before them, they've made an art of incorporating "stuff" in their music, only they take it further than even Pink Floyd ever did. Of course, I'm sure that if Pink Floyd had the proper technology in the '70s, they'd have tried an album like this too, and it probably would've been awesome.
The thing is that even when you remove the crazy layers of trippiness, the songs are pretty damn good in and of their own. "Riding to Work in the Year 2025" defines ambition, beginning with a haunting string pattern before moving into space-rock and hard rock - it's a deft, creative arrangement, and it works perfectly. "35,000 Feet of Despair" is gorgeous, and "A Machine in India" would be gorgeous if it wasn't insane. I don't know how else to describe the screechy see-saw noises and insect buzzings. Just insane! A good type of insane, though. A really, really good type of insane. The song has me riveted for all ten of its minutes. Completely riveted. "Okay, I'll Admit That I Really Don't Understand" leads the album off with a fantastic bass part and some weird, barely audible backing vocals chanting the title. The beautifully overproduced "How Will We Know (Futuristic Crashendos)" sounds like it was beamed down from heaven. And the demented lullaby "The Big Ol' Bug is the New Baby Now" gets a lot of points for me for its twisted sing-along qualities.
And even when the album sucks, it still at least sucks in interesting ways. The album does suck, yes, but only in one place: "March of the Rotten Vegetables. " I don't know how anyone can listen to that buzzing noise that dominates it. I find it unnerving to the point of being unlistenable. I've heard they put a warning label on the album that said the low-frequency buzzing may cause nausea, and let me tell you, they weren't kidding. I do admit I find "March of the Rotten Vegetables" utterly terrible. But if you have to be utterly terrible, go all-out, so at least you can win some kudos for totally taking a chance. I mean, even for an avant-garde non-song sound collage, that's a pretty daring experiment. Besides, maybe it wasn't supposed to sound good.
Anyone who ever had any doubts about the Flaming Lips being arguably the most creative band of the '90s (I'd say it's a toss-up between them and Radiohead) should try their best to find this album right now and see if they still think that way. Wayne Coyne, if you're reading this, wherever you are, you're a genius. A freaking genius.
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The insanity cause my brain to turn to liquid and drip out my left ear
I owned it for over a year before i felt the time was right to listin to it. Ok so it was late one night me and three friends are sitting around my house eating the things that make mario so "super", and we decided to pop in this album. We were not disappointed at all. Out of the four of us i am the only one who is a huge lips fan the others are either into goth-trance-hop, hard core ghetto rap, and the other is into a lot of alt. (but for some reason never got into the lips). Despite are varried musical tastes we all we simply astounded by what was happening to us. The best part of the album is it allows you to play around with the timing of the sounds and music. We got track one to sync perfectly and just let it play like that for the duration of the album. By the time we reached the last track things were so off from where they should have been (time wise) my one friend who was lying down next to disc one said "yo this dude is ranting about some kinda stuffed animal" and we were like "what the hell are you talking about?" next thing we knew disc 3 kicked in and just yelled "stuffed animal baby" at us and we just lost it. In the end one of us swore he was invisable, one of us was laughing so hard he was crying with mucus dripping from every facial orface, and the remainder of us were just lying there in the dark trying to figure out what just happened to our minds and how soon could we take that trip again. Seriously this album is a MUST BUY for any dirty hippes out there and i feel EVERYONE has something to gain by listing to this very special peice of music.

Genius
Excellent result this musical experiment, the Flaming Lips are always trying to get the best sound quality on each record and I think this record sound evolve into the later 5. Te idea of playing a set of 4 disc, each one with different music arrangements on each track, sounded great; when i actually get the 4 cd's to play altoghether it did sound magnificent. 1 surround sound mixes for the Soft Buletin, yoshimi and at war. A masterpiece. .

Garageband + Zaireeka = Awesome
Buy it and experiment with mixing/adding effects/etc; it's a great way to release the inner music producer in all of us. With the advent of consumer-friendly mixing/recording software, this album is more accessible than ever.

Mind Candy...I have found it!
As I'm sure you know, those avant-cooks intend for us to listen to all 4 discs simultaneously. It is great to finally own a copy of this 4-disc album by The Flaming Lips. . . that is, all together on four separate stereo systems, old boom boxes, car stereos. . . whatever you can find to make it work. . . synchronized by simply pressing all four play buttons at the same time (you may need to invite some friends over). What you get is, for lack of a better word, an experience. It's fun. You listen intently to what is happening spatially, quirks and clicks become things of wonder. Context becomes the proverbial elephant in the room. It makes you happy.

That being said this is probably (pre-warner bros. aside) the band's least accessible album "musically," often seeming as though they assembled the album from what they swept up off the floor of their last recording session. But that's part of the beauty of the Flaming Lips; that knack about them, I guess. . . to take something crappy, out of tune, scratched, warped, and otherwise ordinary in their own rights and assemble them with such sincerity and understanding as to create a whole "something" greater than the sum of its parts. Somehow majestic in its banality. . . Well worth the investment. . . There is also an entertaining, unpretentious, and comprehensive documentary out on these guys that is definitely worth a watch titled, "Fearless Freaks. " Have fun.

You can see a complete list of all The Flaming Lips discography, or go back to the The Flaming Lips tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.