In 1996 Wayne Coyne started a series of experiments. He’d pass out sound tapes to crowds of participants with boomboxes and car stereos, then preside over the cacophony like some mad conductor. Which he already was, as the leader of the Flaming Lips, the psychedelic rock group known for their catchy, freaky tunes. The question was - how to incorporate this new vision of community orchestras and public performance art into their next proper album.
1997's Zaireeka was the answer. The album was released on four CDs to be played simultaneously on separate stereos. I bought it at Tower Records in NYC, and went home disappointed. The whole mix was designed to float around the speakers, with all sorts of weird effects and instrumentation, so it was impossible to play one CD to just get a vibe. Imagine the frustration - one of your favorite bands has a new album that you own but can't play. None of my friends were interested in a four stereo playthrough. So it remained a mystery.
A few years later a mixed version of Zaireeka showed up on file sharing sites. Of course the mix doesn't do justice to the band's vision, of vocals and sounds whipping around the room. Still it was good to actually hear the songs - sort of. Zaireeka is weird, and not in the usual Flaming Lips way. Their music looks at the sadness of the world with a psychedelic innocence, some wide pupil’d optimism in the face of death and dissatisfaction. Zaireeka seemed truly dark, and confused, drawn into itself. Odd that an album so meant to promote community seemed all about isolation and loss of identity. But that’s where we are now, isn’t it? Brought together online only to find ourselves further apart?
The opening song doesn’t bode well, for the gimmick or the album itself. Steven Drozd’s trademark Bonham-drumming bashes away to a rickety bass riff and Coyne’s warbling. Nothing coalesces, which is precisely the point - “Okay, I’ll Admit That I Really Don’t Understand.” The song is a rocket ship blast into the future, from 1997 to somewhere about now.
“Your invisible now/and I know that it’s hard to get used to,” goes the refrain of “Riding To Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now).” Of course that title seemed so futuristic at the time. The song makes a lot more sense today. We are getting used to it - the slow boil to passive consumerism, our small voices in the great void. Zaireeka really nails this gnawing sense of techno-isolation. Much more than say David Bowie’s “futuristic” Diamond Dogs, which envisioned a sci-fi Broadway dystopia. No - dystopia is not a setpiece for your cool album or video, but something we just slowly get used to, moment by moment.
“Thirty-Five Thousand Feet Of Despair” seems to be about a missing plane whose pilot has committed suicide. The creepy chords evoke the sweeping searchlights, and suggest much more to the story. “A Machine In India” is a strummy folk song built on imagery of missiles and female genitalia. I think of it as some dissociative view of societal trauma - war is underway, a soldier on a mission has a silly thought about weapons and sex. The song is so innocently performed that we’re not meant to make any other connections. But it relates to the album’s theme, of coping in a collapsing world. It’s the equivalent of a meme post pointing out how missile looks like a dick.
“The Train Runs Over The Camel, But Is Derailed By The Gnat” is mostly instrumental, and rather directionless. Still a great title, like the one from 2009’s Embryonic that would have fit this album: “The Sparrow Looks Up At The Machine.” After a chanted melody ending, the next track “How Will We Know (Futuristic Crescendos),” clarifies the album’s theme. Vague apocalyptic panic - “how will we know when this rush of noise we’re hearing is the world’s biggest hammer?” That impossibly big question is posed as small talk, water cooler armageddon stuff. After COVID, we all know something about that. We’ve collectively been through trauma, and the future doesn’t look too bright either. In 1985 Back To The Future gleefully showed us flying skateboards and digital newspapers. Can you imagine any serious artist presenting a positive view of the future now? No. Every day we’re bracing ourselves for the next shoe to drop - not to fly, just drop, gone forever.
The instrumental “March Of The Rotten Vegetables” is given mostly to a wild drum solo. Again Drozd is the band’s secret weapon, both grounding the spacier instincts, and engaging in them as a multi-instrumentalist. Zaireeka followed the departure of guitarist Ronald Jones, who had a genius for perfectly bizarre contributions - cf. “Placebo Headwound” from 1995’s Clouds Taste Metallic. Zaireeka was the bold first step of the new Flaming Lips as trio with producer Dave Fridmann. Their work over the next few years would elevate the band, from quirky indie favorite to psychedelic rock institution.
Zaireeka ends on an interesting note. It's almost Joycean, how it wraps up the madness with simple poignancy. "The Big Ol’ Bug Is The New Baby Now" is just Wayne Coyne relating a story of his dogs, and the lack of logic to their chew toy preferences. The song has a hymnal quality, inviting us to some larger connections. Is it possible to interpret it as a summation of the album's theme? Well - society changes, and so do we, dissociating perhaps, as deal with trauma and depression, ever reminded of the fragility of our mental health. But are we so unhealthy? We just carry on. The Big Ol’ Bug could be the internet, or technology itself. Or maybe not. Who knows? Life is short, find a good chew toy.
In many ways Zaireeka got it wrong. The whole idea of four CDs is archaic today, and the thought of four phones playing at once just seems irritating. But what it gets right is the unsettled feeling of living through societal trauma, and the small things we do to deal with it. For new listeners of the Flaming Lips, I would not recommend this album - 1999’s The Soft Bulletin and 2002's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots offer more accessible takes with similar themes. But if you're feeling adventurous, or looking for some funhouse mirror version of the existential dread that we all scroll past, and bury deep down, day after day - try streaming a mix of Zaireeka. There is no official version. Just slightly different visions of an absurd world.