Chattanooga Pulse

The Flaming Lips
Embryonic
(Warner Bros.)

There’s a saying among comedians which goes, “If everybody laughs, you aren’t doing your job.”  It takes the idea of comedy as something beyond mere delight—it has the ability to provoke and challenge and divide.  Similarly, I find an odd comfort when I hear or read comments from devotees, in response to any type of art, that essentially say, “I don’t get it.”  It means that the artist is defying expectations, for better or for worse.  In the case of the Flaming Lips, musical departures have been very good for them.  The first happened in the late ’90s, when the band went from a pretty good, kinda weird, semi-psychedelic fuzz-pop-rock band to a micro-tweaked, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink, expansive studio project, starting with the astoundingly dense Zaireeka and the band’s second breakthrough, The Soft Bulletin.

The Flaming Lips’ latest album, Embryonic, may not be an easy sell, but it quite possibly is the best thing the group has ever made.  There’s an overarching wicked feeling to the album, and much of it sounds dirtied-up—in particular, the drums are almost always distorted.  The point of comparison that immediately springs forth is Miles Davis’s electric period (late ’60s to mid ’70s), especially on songs like “The Sparrow Looks up at the Machine” with a menacing groove, wah-guitar stabs, and icy electric piano chords.  At other times, bands like Can or Pink Floyd come to mind—in particular, “Silver Trembling Hands” is reminiscent of the latter’s “One of These Days” with the throbbing keyboard part of early Suicide.

Even on the album’s most playful track, “I Can Be a Frog” featuring Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs providing animal sounds and laughs via telephone, there’s a softly aching, melancholic tone, carried over to the “The Impulse,” which is like Kraftwerk playing jazz.  With the last few releases, at times there was more frosting than cake, but the group has modified its rules so that it doesn’t seem to be an issue.  Miles Davis had Bitches Brew, and Radiohead had Kid A—now, Embryonic is the game-changer for the Flaming Lips.

Forest Magic
Is Energy
(www.myspace.com/forestmagic)

The idea behind the fascinating Chattanooga quintet Forest Magic helps explain why its music is hard to pin down: The concept is that the group is actually from the future, sifting through the remains of the past and shaping them into something new.  For a time, it seemed like the band would approach each live performance with a different method, sometimes making a rhythmic maelstrom, and other times focusing on non-linear pop structures.  However, the group’s main features were always present, with a combination of both organic and artificial sounds and a compelling drive, and every member brings a vital component to the sound balance.

For the outfit’s debut album, Is Energy, the key elements are there, but there’s a different sonic environment at work; it’s a clean recording with a bit of self-control, bringing the center of attention to the songs themselves, and synthetics are used sparingly.  Live, the vocals are sometimes treated with echo effects, and the rhythm section dominates the sound.  On record, the violin is a more prominent instrument, and the vocals and lyrics aren’t obscured.  There are roughly three kinds of songs on Is Energy, and the structured, vibrant numbers comprise the meat of the album.  Also featured are ambient sound punctuation, such as the opening piece and the mid-album “Protector,” and spontaneous alternate-world primitive folk songs like “O” and “It Is Good.”  Highlights include the spry, constantly shifting, nearly eight-minute “Return/Stroll,” which is possibly the band’s most complex track, and the piercing “Teeth,” featuring some feral vocals.

After hearing some of these songs frequently live, it’s nice to have satisfying recordings of them, but it’s important to point out that it doesn’t provide a total picture; one might even go so far as to say that it isn’t quite representative of the band’s live shows, which have defined the group so far.  In a way, much of Is Energy is perhaps like the band’s own personal time capsule, presenting the source material before it is re-imagined and sculpted, to confound easy definition. – Ernie Paik