finally, a day to myself, sort of. after the busiest few days of the year, today is sort of a calm before the storm before the storm. the first storm being a big final presentation in advertising tomorrow night, the storm, of course, being finals week. but since we’re in the eye here, i can finally start recapping what i’ve been up to lately and how cool these days have been, even though i hadn’t had time to write about them until now.
so going way back to last friday, i went over to my friend spencer’s place late at night.
backstory:
i’ve been a big flaming lips fan since high school, and heard even way back then about their album zaireeka, a cool experiment in recording and listening to music, which comes as a set of four different cds meant to be listened to simultaneously. i never bought it because i never thought i’d have four cd players in one room, or even in one house (my parents don’t listen to much music).
some excerpts from an article on their site about zaireeka, written after a listening test with singer/mastermind/eccentric wayne coyne:
“The music surges from alternate directions and we start to turn ourselves round and move side to side – experimenting with this melange that has become this glorious total sound. Gentle guitar, stray noises, voices, voices, and beautiful strings and horns just swooping past and around. At times it’s like there are three clones of the Flaming Lips all playing at once, with slightly different songs that only almost lock in. Then it’s all synched and it’s a total sound again. The process just makes it all the more exciting and powerful. Stuff races around the room and you feel like you’ve been hit in the head. This particular song ends with about a million dogs all barking from all directions i.e. it’s bloody frightening.”
wayne, talking about the cd: “Some of the songs are designed to go in and out of sync – we changed them on purpose. I wanted a record to challenge people. Something that you have to listen to a couple of times before you can decide if you like or not.”
and if those don’t impress you, let me tell you some more weird stuff. in the liner notes for track 6, it contains a warning that the high frequency sounds could induce dizziness or nausea, and should not be played around infants (we theorized that their soft little heads might explode, maybe?). the tracks have little “explanations” in the liner notes as well as to what they’re about, with such greats as “riding to work in 2025 (you’re invisible now)”, which is about a secrent agent who collapses into insanity after realizing he’s the most important man in the world. yeah, it’s pretty weird.
so when my friend spencer told me he had started listening to the flaming lips, and had ordered zaireeka, i was excited. very. it came last week and he said friday night we should do this thing, so we did. i had an interview the next day (which i’ll get into later), so i didn’t even have the benefit of having any drinks beforehand, but i don’t know if that would have made a difference, because frankly, it was so impressive already.
i would describe it as a good flaming lips cd, only blown to pieces. the songs are extremely cool, and the way they play out over four not-quite synced cds is really interesting and fun. there were six of us in the room, and aside from looking at eachother and making “did you hear that?” faces every so often, we did nothing but sit and listen. it was pretty amazing. i think we’re even going to do it again soon.
the high-pitched part on one track did make one guy a little queasy, and some of it was downright creepy, but these are the sort of things that really only make it more of an experience. overall i’d say if you get the chance, you should borrow a couple extra boomboxes and go crazy with zaireeka. it’s definitely worth the effort.
