Empire Of The Sun
Ice On The Dune
So, the Flaming Lips in a kooky, off-the-wall, eccentric project. Who’d have thought it?
Originally released in a different form for Record Store Day, this bizarre venture sees Wayne Coyne’s psychedelic Oklahoma rockers unite with a ragbag of performers in a series of highly contrary collaborations.
Coyne clearly has the most exhaustive and eclectic contacts book in rock. On opening track 2012 he achieves the dubious feat of making brat-popper Ke$ha sound like The Fall, while Ashes In The Air catapults reclusive troubadour Bon Iver into a typical Lips kaleidoscope of sound.
The enjoyably disturbed You, Man? Human??? featuring Nick Cave could be a high-quality Grinderman outtake, while Do It! finds Yoko Ono squealing over dissonant noise (no change there, then). Coyne then pitches Erykah Badu through the looking glass with a ghostly, ten-minute distorted take on Ewan MacColl’s The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.
His own keening vocal is heard to best effect on Children of the Moon, featuring Tame Impala, but the album is light on tunes and melodies and may be a tad too fragmented even for diehard Lips fans. It’s fun – but you may not return to it too often.
