Zaireeka

As soon as I’d done the Pebbles post below with the two embedded tracks I thought of doing a post on Zaireeka. I was mighty intrigued when I first heard about this album and, after some prolonged pondering, I made the purchase. I hadn’t heard much by the Flaming Lips and what I had I thought was merely okay. I’m not a big fan of Wayne Coyne’s vocals. But I think that this is such a good idea that it just has to be tried out.

I could have a go at playing it through various bits and bobs (when the ipod docking station comes back from the repair shop anyway) but they’re all of relatively low quality. And besides, one of the most appealing elements to the album is the coming together of people (and their stereo systems) to play it. Eventually I’m sure I’ll get together with a couple of my more audiophiliac friends and we’ll have the whole thing on four proper separate stereos. In the meantime I thought this was worth a pop.

This set up, coming out of just one set of speakers, is not to hear it as its creator intended. Also, unless you know a magical way of setting off the players below simultaneously, you’ll not have the cueing that he’s fairly insistent on. Not sure why about that bit – if the songs are never meant to sound the same.









The track above is "March Of The Rotten Vegetables" and this is what the liner notes say about it:

I envisioned this as music for a cartoon about a group of determined vegetables who feel like the place where they're growing is..no good. So they uproot and head for better soil..encountering hardship and heroism along the way..as they parade through Meatville they are BOOed, then they are attacked by bats, but eventually, before they rot, they must find better ground..cd No.1 plays the main theme. Cd No.3 takes over during the "here come the bats" part and all the cds join in as the bats"attack". You may hear this as a freakish drum solo.

I've just had a go and you can synch them up within a few seconds as you go along. It actually works quite well.