The Flaming Lips: Zaireeka
Zaireeka is a concept album released October 28, 1997. The release came in the form of 4 CDs that were meant to be played simultaneously in order to get the whole musical experience. That idea alone was enough to lead me to pass on this album the first time around.
The album, intended the whole time as an experimental release, contains such stereotypical-sounding Flaming Lips titles as “The Train Runs Over the Camel but is Derailed by the Gnat” and “How Will We Know (Futuristic Crescendos)”.
‘The Train…” sounds exactly like a song experiment is supposed to sound, dissonant instrumentality and multiple vocals without much in the way of lyrics. It reminds me a lot of what would late be released on Embryonic or The Terror.
“How Will We Know”, while containing actual lyrics, also contains high and low frequencies that caused the album to have a warning that the frequencies may cause the listener to become disoriented.
The eccentricity of the release led to some events known as Parking Lot Experiments, where multiple stereos were set up in an attempt to play the album as a singular piece. With the proliferation of music editing equipment on laptop computers, the album was eventually mixed into a single piece of work.
Additionally, the album was released as a 4 LP set for Record Store Day 2013. Flaming Lips continue to be a going concern in the music industry, drawing large crowds and playing several festivals.
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