The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends by The Flaming Lips
he Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends is a collaborative studio album by The Flaming Lips. Recorded throughout 2011 and 2012, the album was released as a limited edition on vinyl for Record Store Day on April 21, 2012 and on CD and digitally on June 26, 2012. Four songs from the album were previously released on collaborative EPs in 2011. Following their last full-length album, 2009's Embryonic, the band produced several EPs with other artists including Neon Indian, Lightning Bolt, Prefuse 73, and Yoko Ono. Four tracks from these sessions appear on the album. The remaining seven songs were recorded at different times and locations, and are exclusive to the LP. The CD and digital releases of the album omit the track "I Don't Want You to Die," featuring Chris Martin, but feature an exclusive track with Aaron Behrens of Ghostland Observatory, "Tasered and Maced." The Erykah Badu version of Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", was a result of Lips frontman Wayne Coyne's unsolicited calls to the singer. Badu was initially opposed to covering the well-known 1972 song, but Coyne was able to convince her. Other pairings resulted from the iniative of other artists, such as the Kesha track. Kesha had expressed interest in working with the Flaming Lips while visiting the band's hometown, Oklahoma City. She contacted Coyne by text message on his birthday. Her track, "2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)", was recorded in Kesha's home studio in Nashville.
The Flaming Lips specialize in exploring the unknown: in trying anything and everything and doing so in the most unusual, unexpected ways. The music here has been culled from a number of hard-to-find releases, and this album was originally issued on vinyl. With titles like "Is David Bowie Dying", "I'm Working at NASA on Acid", "Supermoon Made Me Want to Pee", and "Girl, You're So Weird", it's readily apparent that this shows the Lips at their most extreme. Collaborations with a wide range of guests—from Ke$ha and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band to Bon Iver—further ensure that Wayne Coyne's eclectic spirit roams freely. "Supermoon", featuring Prefuse 73, is a head rush, a barreling-down-the-galaxy whoosh that mellows into a sweet orchestral field that would complement David Lynch's <i>Lost Highway</i> as well as Trent Reznor's score. Nick Cave adds his preacher-of-doom vocal style to "You, Man? Human???", while Erykah Badu tackles the much-covered Ewan MacColl classic "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face" with the band turning it into 10 minutes of hypnotic space travel.
