Embryonic

by The Flaming Lips

Overview

Christmas on Mars might be the Flaming Lips' bona fide sci-fi epic, but Embryonic is the musical equivalent of the final scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey: transformative chaos that results in a new start. From The Soft Bulletin onward, the Lips seemed focused on tidying the loose ends of their earlier work, almost to the point of constraining themselves. Their wilder side is unleashed on Embryonic's 18 tracks, and the band sounds more off-the-cuff than it has in years -- some tracks are barely longer than snippets, others are rangy epics, and it all holds together so organically that listeners might wonder just how much these songs were edited. Musically, Embryonic is the least polite the Flaming Lips have been in nearly two decades, mixing in-the-red drums, blobby, dubby bass, squelchy wah-wah guitars, and sparkling keyboards into a swirl of sounds that are strangely liquid and abrasive at the same time. Occasionally, the band uses noise in an almost ugly way, as on "Convinced of the Hex," which scrapes eardrums with static and distortion before falling into a loose but driving Krautrock groove that adds to the song's tribal pull (complete with growling and wailing in the background). The Miles Davis-inspired "Aquarius Sabotage" opens fuzz bass and keyboards so chaotic, it isn't just free jazz, it's free-for-all jazz, while "Your Bats" is as soulful as it is noisy, piling roomy drums atop more delicate hand percussion, strings, and brass. The Lips balance these confrontational tracks with calmer moments like the vocodered loveliness of "The Impulse " and "Gemini Syringes," an expansive respite that features "additional spoken announcements" by mathematician Thorsten Wormann. Embryonic might not be a literal concept album, but it often plays like one. An astrology motif runs through the ultra-spacy "Virgo Self Esteem Broadcast" and the tumbling instrumental "Scorpio Sword," another track that suggests that the album's ultimate concept may be that chaos is a profound agent of change. It's also the Flaming Lips' most emotionally raw album, despite -- or perhaps because of -- its free-flowing nature. Wayne Coyne often sounds like he's singing from another dimension, musing on humankind's frailty with the wonder of an alien or a newborn on "If" and "The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine." This is also some of the band's most bittersweet work; on the beautiful "Powerless," Coyne sings "no one is ever really powerless," but the music dwells on the weighty implications of that thought rather than its potential freedom. Even the playful "I Can Be a Frog," which features Karen O as a one-woman noisemaker, is minor-key. Then again, little about Embryonic is clear-cut or straightforward -- these noisy, pensive, sometimes meandering songs take awhile to decipher and often feel like they're still in the process of becoming. These very qualities, however, make these songs some of the Flaming Lips most haunting and intriguing music in some time. ~ Heather Phares

Product Details

Release Date:	10/13/2009
Label:	Warner Bros.
UPC:	0093624973386

Tracks

1. Convinced of the Hex
2. The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine
3. Evil
4. Aquarius Sabotage
5. See the Leaves
6. If
7. Gemini Syringes
8. Your Bats
9. Powerless
10. The Ego's Last Stand
11. I Can Be a Frog
12. Sagittarius Silver Announcement
13. Worm Mountain
14. Scorpio Sword
15. The Impulse
16. Silver Trembling Hands
17. Virgo Self-Esteem Broadcast
18. Watching the Planets

Album Credits

Performance Credits

The Flaming Lips   Primary Artist
Karen O   Noise,Vocals
Ben Goldwasser   Vocals
Thorsten Woermann   Spoken Word
Andrew VanWyngarden   Vocals
Thorsten Mohrmann   Speech/Speaker/Speaking Part
Steven Drozd   Drums,Guitar,Vocals,Keyboards,Guitar (Bass)
Wayne Coyne   Guitar,Vocals,Keyboards
Michael Ivins   Keyboards,Guitar (Bass),Vocals (Background)
Kliph Scurlock   Drums,Percussion

Technical Credits

Kliph Scurlock   Group Member,Audio Engineer,Mixing Engineer,Composer,Producer
The Flaming Lips   Recording,Mixing,Composer,Engineer,Producer
Ben Goldwasser   Musician
George Salisbury   Design,Layout Design
Andrew VanWyngarden   Musician
Steven Drozd   Composer,Producer,Group Member,Audio Engineer,Mixing Engineer
Karen O   Sounds,Screams
Wayne Coyne   Composer,Producer,Group Member,Audio Engineer,Mixing Engineer
Scott Booker   Producer
Michael Ivins   Composer,Engineer,Producer,Group Member,Audio Engineer,Mixing Engineer
Dave Fridmann   Mixing,Engineer,Producer,Mastering,Recording,Programming,Audio Engineer,Mixing Engineer,Mastering Engineer