AR: Embryonic

The Flaming Lips - Embryonic (2009)

"We wanted to make a double album in the spirit of Bitches Brew," or something like that, was the quote from Wayne Coyne that grabbed my attention. The Flaming Lips, godfathers of weird, were returning from a decade of pop-psychedelic beauty to their freakout roots; finally, the offbeat-but-recently-radio-friendly rockers were taking acid ... again. It was incredibly difficult to imagine what '70s fusion funk-jazz rock inspiration might sound like filtered through neo-psychedelic space-love-optimism rock, but given that the band was coming off a previous LP of ambient-desolate mood music - the soundtrack for their self-produced B-movie Christmas on Mars - the possibilities weren't exactly limited. The forthcoming double LP was to be almost entirely the product of studio jams, and a certain free spirit aka disregard for conventions of what-constitutes-ear-pleasing music was rumored to rear its head in a way that hadn't been heard since their pre-In a Priest-Driven Ambulance days. That's like, 1989, people! You can imagine my excitement when I made the Best Buy pilgrimage to purchase the FLips' first new album in three plus years. My heart veritably glowed with appreciation for this band, the real life instantiation of my vague hopes that somehow, somewhere, some artists were not content with the reality in front of them and were willing, even after a 20+ year career, to drop it all in effort to expand the limits. And expand they did - it's a strange case, indeed, when a band's first double LP comes well after their first experimental quadruple LP, and the former successfully out-weirds the latter by a country mile.

The typical account of Embryonic, though, strikes me as inaccurate. It pretends that the very natural path from Clouds Taste Metallic to The Soft Bulletin to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots to At War With the Mystics was swimming along, and Embryonic represents some severe left turn back to roots. For one, that account ignores the aforementioned space station soundtrack - though associated with that specific project, the soundtrack to Christmas on Mars is a much more jarring departure of style from the likes of AWWtM, so if you're going to point at the locus of a left turn, them's the coordinates. That soundtrack, in stark contrast to the upfront melodicism and advertisement-readiness of the FLips' last studio album, is downright bleak - its mechanical rumblings and atmospheric wails reveal a band very much willing to break with whatever Yoshimi-pop momentum had been established. The stripped down experimentalism of Embryonic is much more logical when the actual recent history is not forgotten.

For two, it's a misnomer to label this a return to form. I'll maybe grant you a "return to spirit," but the pre-Priest FLips were an exercise in rough, unbound edges, punk rock played by hallucinogenic weirdos. As I'll recount below, Embryonic is a product of the harmonic experiences of the band, not a drop everything and become wacky punks again. It's absurd to claim that Embryonic could possibly have come to light without the intervening style-development; indeed, much of the album echoes the FLips' history in fascinating ways. This is a brand new sound in some sense; sure, a departure, but timbres and techniques from the past five FLips albums are all over this supposedly brand new music, too.

So, that clarified, what is going on with Embryonic? For one, the rumors are true. No radio-friendly singles here, and nary a sing-along life-affirming chorus to be found. From the first few notes of "Convinced of the Hex" - an opener that combines strident, trebly guitar barbs with synth bell tones, a thumping bass and an offhand anxious vocal - it's apparent that the rainbows have receded. The frightening, sparking guitar solo that dribbles throughout is enough to indicate the factory sprawl of this event. Raw, sinister, dreadful - these are the adjectives that cover the land/sky/universe-scape here, and the FLips absolutely crush it across both discs. What is violently apparent on Embryonic is a far-less hippie-ish outlook on things - the hex is a curse, and there are aspects of our situation that a beaming anthem and a thousand strumming acoustics just can't fix. That's not to say that this is a strict concept album, just that there is a theme here - constant embryonic status in trying to grow into something when meaning doesn't seem forthcoming. As you can imagine, this is a topic right up my alley*.

*- Um, there's your warning that you're about to get a track-by-track review of a double album. Hope your bladder's empty.

If there is a consistent feature of the album, it is that thumping bass and, yes, "Bonham" drums - the insistent boom of both drive a lot of the tracks with a ne'erending variety of rhythmic patterns. The next song, "The Sparrow Looks at the Machine" buzzes to life and combines this drive with echoes of sentiments covered in Yoshimi; one half expects the vocals to declare again that "all we have is now," but this time around things seem more deeply concerned with how we deal with what, what does it mean? Two tracks in, and the familiar tendencies of the band seem to be eaten away by this meandering new force, the stark realization that things are darkly well beyond our control and we have to accept that.

"Evil"'s repeated desire, the wish to "go back in time," invokes the optimistic tones of the past few albums while admitting the defeat that one "will never understand" why some people are evil *and* prevail. They're the same dreamy tones, but now they're black-and-white fractured. It's a lament, a new outlook for the band, and an embrace of darker realizations that no one actually can go back in time. Crackles and mechanical effects refuse to permit this track to round out; it's a space-industrial ballad that moves extraordinarily slowly through its bleak-beauty. (Also note that there's a watch-beep audible on the track, a cheeky allusion to The Soft Bulletin's "What is the Light?" where this happened accidentally).

"Aquarius Sabotage" is the first of several pure freak out jam snippets that explode off this album. It's cacophonic juxtaposition, with ethereal harp strums greeted by a rumbling bass, screeching guitars and shattering glass sound effects. This is, arguably, busier and more disorienting than even the ultra-high / ultra-low frequency combos on Zaireeka, but it fleets in and out quickly, collapsing into a dream symphonic passage that echoes with sewer drips. It's certainly not a single, but it's one of the more impressive sound collages I've heard in quite some time. "Scorpio Sword" covers similar territory later in the album with a bit more of a sparse, free jazz approach; both of these pieces serve their interlude functions quite well, and the FLips smartly cut them off before they become onerous.

The first excellent avalanche groove is "See the Leaves," a foreboding meditation on the inevitability of death, with no "realizations" to save you this time. Just when the crescendo seems to have broken all limits, things fly off the cliff into a free-time, slow down rumbling cello recount of the chorus. It's an unbearably sad moment as the terrifying march turns to despair. The album isn't all lost hope, though - the next track "If" warbles into the alternative "But on the other side..." It's a sparse falsetto, shuffle sound response to "Evil" that we still have the power to choose ... though it begrudgingly admits that we don't often succeed.

"Gemini Syringes" is a slow dirge of a repetitive simple bass riff with both the spoken word recordings of a mathematician and the vocal click effects of Karen O. Both performers crop up in other places on the album; the vibe of "space transmissions" is undeniable. This tune slowly builds from its quiet beginnings to a layered effects ballad; it's *highly* reminiscent of the Miles Davis ballads from this era, though of course the spoken word bits make it quite a bit odder. One of the less formed (ha!) tunes "Your Bats" follows; the bass is turned into a huge bullhorn as stumbling drums and a falsetto wall meander about. It's admittedly an unfinished piece and more about atmospherics than tune, but it's another one that sits in a nice spot for a reprieve from the aural assault.

Speaking of ... "Powerless" is a big work in the middle of the album, settling on a slow, foreboding bass groove that refuses to quit. Coyne's vocals speak to some form of acceptance, but the music behind him evokes gathering storm clouds of the "Something Wicked This Way Comes" variety. The tune then treads on Doors / BB territory with a spastic yet slow guitar solo that is allowed to gyrate all over the map as the bass cooly continues to plod. This instrumental passage occupies the middle three minutes of this seven minute song, the guitar eventually exchanging the warbling lines for crashing guitar chords over a reprise of the song's intro combos. A wind howls across this track; "ominous" rarely describes things so aptly.

Side two begins with "The Ego's Last Stand," another death meditation that involves a bass / guitar dialog underneath wailing vocals and more mid-'70s Jarret/Hancock keyboard splashes. At roughly the 2:20 mark, the vocals admit that there's "no way out," and the battle commences - perhaps my favorite moment of kitchen-sink on the record as horns, guitars, drums, and everything else start to riot. The only relief for the tune's end is to migrate to a near a cappella section with the instruments still emitting death croaks. A riveting tune. Because levity is in order, the sublimely frivolous "I Can Be a Frog" follows - simpleton lyrics that sound like the proceedings from a preschool pre-nap reading session are called-and-answered by Karen-O who supplies animal-and-otherwise sound effects. It is been noted here that even this song is in a minor key, and here that these animal noises are a bit too scary for kindergarten audiences. I still find the tune charming, though those reviews are right; the off-kilter nature of the happiest song on the discs keeps it in the appropriate register.

"Sagitarius Silver Announcement" is a quick ballad touched with harps and reverberating choir effects; its tension is maintained by the vocal chant of "We can be like they are / We can be free / Free to be evil / Free to believe." The tune was born of a jam but the studio effects render it surprisingly tight - it serves as a nice melodic precursor to "Worm Mountain," the second of the three avalanche grooves. The bass is, unbelievably, turned up for this one; the power of "The Gash" is unleashed in chaotic form as the room rattles to what feels like a blitzkrieg. It's a bit overwhelming, really, though fantastic, and the explosion into typically FLipsy string cascades at the song's end is yet another effective relief.

The aforementioned jam "Scorpio Sword" and "The Impulse" come next; the latter is an instrumental / augmented (vocoder?) vocal piece that helps recovery from the chaos tha twent before. It's pretty enough but is probably the least standout piece on the album. "Silver Trembling Hands" is a grand work; it alternates a near-punkish drive-ahead rant with breakdown half-time choruses that balance the tune smartly. This song serves as the best example of this not being a sort of retread over old FLips' territory - the neo-psychedelic, synthesizer passages over the top of the acid freakout never would have appeared in the old days; this excellent combo appears to be every bit a product of their ongoing, storied evolution.

"Virgo Self-Esteem Broadcast" brings back the mathematician for a sparse spoken word affirmation of post-acceptance possibility over more strident guitar hits. These crashes sound like the fade-out of humanity's last space transmission and would have ended the album on an incomplete note. ... but, thankfully, there's a coda. And que coda!

The last of the avalanche grooves, "Watching the Planets," brilliantly closes the album; its pounding apocalyptic sense makes it my favorite sendoff in this spirit since Led Zep's "When the Levee Breaks." After an entire album of dark-room meditations and terror experimentation, questions of how to deal with evil and acceptance of the idiosyncrasies of being and being around humans, this cathartic monster is enough to make me absolutely DANCE. And what sentiment could possibly be better than the one that occurs in the brief keyboard laden drum-silence: "Oh Oh Oh - Finding the Answer! - Oh Oh Oh - Finding that there ain't no answer to find!" Talk about your classic existential responses to one's small place in the universe! "Watching the Planets" is gorgeous in its hypnosis and the perfect response to the confusion dripping across the album. I absolutely love that the same band that gave the sort of "LOVE!" answer in prior meditations on death and evil here give the defiant, transcendent response; the cheese is dropped in favor of a courageous staredown of all these ominous strands. I can wax on about this indefinitely, so I'll stop here; trust that this strikes me as a dead-on, perfect album closer.

I've now spent about thirty seconds internally debating where this album stands for me; I don't really like rushing to judgment and packing 2009 discs for the Island. But dammit, Embryonic is brilliant. I'm certainly a FLips fanboy, and you should take this rec with that in mind - I am admittedly inclined to love most of what this band churns out. Sure, some of the passages are raw and underdeveloped ... but check the title, fool, that's the point. And yeah, you need to be in the appropriate wide-open mind mood for it, one where you're ready to embrace a large amount of conceptual and musical unease ... but you should always be in that mood! Alright, I'll agree that it's maybe not the best driving album. :) Otherwise, though, this is one of those "has it all" albums - consistent theme, good openers and closers, no real low points, a number of standout songs, a vibe that makes you feel like you're in the room while it's being recorded, and props props props to ambition. The FLips could have easily continued their sunbeam ride and continued to sell albums; I am continuously blown away by their fearless approach to a business they still maintain as an art form. I don't even care what "direction" this means for them - this stylistic shift is itself an endpoint, and Embryonic is the sort of masterpiece that makes other 21st century music forays look silly by comparison. A big thanks to The Flaming Lips for this freeing work; it's the type of thing I find myself living for. Get it.

Status: Recommended (Desert Island)
Nyet's Faves: "See the Leaves" and "Watching the Planets"