Gov’t Mule Reveal Plans for Annual Mule-O-Ween Celebration in New Orleans Taper’s Choice Nod to Phish’s Thematic Spelling Setlist in Colorado Who knows what brilliance may yet come? To quote Jung again: “The dream is a little hidden door into the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into the cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego.”ĭavid Paul Kleinman is a longtime contributor to the site. The band will soon begin their third decade together. Listening to Embryonic, one gets the feeling this is only the beginning for the Flaming Lips. The Wall was recorded as Pink Floyd was just about done as a band. The Wall lacks the psychotropic wonder of Dark Side and Embryonic. It must be experienced fully and completely.īecause it is a double album-by vinyl standards, anyway-it will seem logical to compare it to The Wall. I cannot imagine listening to a single song from Embryonic, or even listening to a part of the album. While Yoshimi is also a concept album, I’ve never had any trouble skipping to the title track and “Do You Realize?” when I’m in the right mood. Only the Flaming Lips could best their 2002 masterpiece Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Only the Flaming Lips could record a Kafkaesque album. Only the Flaming Lips could take a piece of technology that has come to represent all that is wrong with music and make something truly amazing with it. Later comes “The Impulse,” which is the reason the auto-tuner was invented. Knowledge is no advantage when it is a matter of one’s own dreams.” For as Jung wrote, “Dreams are always a little bit ahead of the dreamer’s consciousness.

The song creates a place to ponder the nature of evil: is evil an innate part of human nature? Or is evil a symptom of circumstance? There’s more to our dream, but let’s leave it that. The orchestration is lush and psychedelic the melody is astral and the mood is pacific. Songs like “Evil” feel like a long, cool nap after four hours of tantric sex. The songs are a philosophical dialogue, fluctuating between dark, “Your Bats,” and light, “Gemini Syringes.” Dark songs are bass-and-drums-heavy vamps, similar to Hendrix’s “If 6 Was 9.” Light songs are spaced-out and synth-heavy with Coyne’s heavenly voice and clean poetry floating at their center. She is having a conversation with a gentleman named Wayne Coyne, who also happens to be the lead singer of a band called the Flaming Lips. She has already concluded people are evil they must choose to be kind. We will ponder the eternal question: Is there evil in nature? Once her ego is crushed, she can transform into anything: a frog, a bat, a bear, a cat, a lion, a gila monster, a warrior indian, a helicopter, a wolf, a finch, a jaguar, a locust, a monkey, a tiger, a tornado. She may be in danger, but she has magical powers that transmogrify. We will meet Jung and Dick and Coyne in our dream(s), which will be real because they will be the same.

We will return home and dream the same dreams. We will hear Embryonic, but we will not speak. And when you get to “Scorpio Sword,” and the music finally resolves itself, it is like falling in love, seeing the Grand Canyon, skydiving, and dying all at the same time. Yes, a “great guitar solo” on a Flaming Lips’ album. It is the best concept album since Dark Side. Lie down in dark comfort.Įmbryonic is the most psychedelic thing I’ve experienced, and I count mushrooms as a “psychedelic thing.” Listening to it is like watching all time occur in the same instance, all possible historical narratives slicing into each other at the nexus of the universe. So buy Embryonic, turn out the lights, silence the phone, feed the dog, and drug the wife. If you and I dream it, then it will be so. Or are you watching a dream? Or are you experiencing the collective unconscious of eternity? Or taking a stroll through the dark corners of Wayne Coyne’s mind? Is it a coincidence Embryonic is being released one week before Carl Jung’s The Red Book, the 100-year old manuscript which will be a guided tour of Jung’s descent into madness and hallucination? No. Listening to Embryonic-the Oklahoma band’s 12th album-is like watching a movie: a strange, majestic, hypnagogic movie. The Flaming Lips have recorded my generation’s Dark Side of the Moon. “When two people dream the same dream, it ceases to be an illusion.” – Philip K.

The flaming lips embryonic