The Flaming Lips / Neon Indian
The Flaming Lips with Neon Indian
(Warner Bros.)

In the world of today’s neo-psychedelic indie rock far-outedness, the Flaming Lips and newcomers Neon Indian share a common musical thread.  Their new four-song eponymous collaboration is, not surprisingly, interesting and very, very far-out.

The opening track, “Is David Bowie Dying?,” contains musical signatures of both groups and while David Bowie may be dying (at least as much as all of us are) he would likely approve of the sound, which mixes acoustic guitar and Wayne Coyne vocals with various slightly off-beat electronic sounds. The track might be considered traditional when compared to the eight minute soundscape that follows “Alan’s Theremin,” which sounds as if the two bands were on separate planets and beaming their music to each other through Stanley Kubrick’s space wormhole. The third track, “You Don’t Respond”, might be the most interesting and unexpected song to come from the project with its unique repeating high-fuzz guitar hook, which travels in stereo and Alan Palomo taking the lead through deep echo. The final track is “Do You Want New Wave Or Do You Want The Truth Part 2,” which is ,in a sense, a marriage of the previous three tracks as it retains some semblance of a traditional song but has the feeling of an improvised jam that has been sent through time and gathered sonic interference in the process.

So if you love the music of the Flaming Lips and Neon Indian or if you just love acid and need something to listen to, this is your album.