By Kate Birch
American psychedelic rock band The Flaming lips, release their new experimentally genius album – Oczy Mlody. The album is undeniably a major turning point in the band’s music – almost entirely abandoning their more familiar, guitar-based sound, and diving into the deep end of a much darker sounding, electro-based genre.
Haunting synth sounds encased by moody drum beats open the band’s latest work in first track: album-titled: Oczy Mlody.
Odd synth sounds continue into ‘How??’, this time accompanied by ghostly vocals and deeply resonating bass notes. The depth and contrast of the track create an uneasy, trippy feeling, reinforced by narcotic themed lyrics.
Third track – ‘There should be unicorns’ – carries on the strained bass notes of ‘How??’ and take on a more upbeat feel, prompted by the addition of barely recognisable percussion and unstable melody notes. A booming, baritone voice, speaking of the partly political, partly fantastical “end of the world”, finishes the song in a state of disorientated serenity.
Collected drumbeats and steady piano notes in ‘Sunrise’ (Eyes of the young) make for a chill entrance into the rest of the album, progressing into the laid back feel of a Mac Demarco style guitar melody, and glossy string-vocal duos.
Proceeding tracks; ‘Nigdy Ny (Never No)’, ‘Galaxy I Sink’ and ‘One night while hunting for faeries and witches and wizards to kill’, develop the extra-terrestrial vibes of the enigmatic album with reverberating bass and synth, disturbing vocals, featuring horror movie-esque strings or tinny sounding bass drum beats.
‘Do Glowy’ continues the repeated feel of uneasy beats and odd sounding synth-vocals as the album reaches its midpoint. Subtle new additions throughout the song build the uncertain undercurrent that runs through the whole album, ringing familiar of bands like Alt-j and Glass Animals.
Unblemished bass notes ground the fairy-tale feel of Listening to the frogs with demon eyes; the album’s 9th track begins to drop the heavier sounds that build throughout Oczy Mlody, but the track fully embraces a much more haunting tone in the form of illusory vocal harmonies and a goose-bump raising piano part.
The darker mood that steals the spotlight in this album is dropped in optimistic sounding: the castle. Lifting vocals and dreamy lyrics, almost acting as a soothing relief before the following track, ‘Almost Home (Blisko Domo)’ plunges back into the same darkly haunting atmospherics as before.
Last, but certainly not least, is the album’s twelfth track: ‘We A family’. Arguably the pinnacle of the album, the song returns back to the more familiar sound of guitar strumming, backed by breezy synth and vocal harmonies. Airy vocals play with subdued drumbeats before crashing into a full-bodied bass and experimental electro-indie instrumental. The sound of strings, harmonious voices, and glossy synth continues throughout the rest of the song. In waves the track draws back into a relaxed, moody sound, suddenly rolling back into the resonating drum and bass.
Experimental. Dark. Dreamy. The album may come as a shock to fans of The flaming lips, but the band has gone to new lengths to keep up their distinctly different sound. The album is by no means their best work but is definitely a sign of what is to come. Testing new sounds and pushing their own musical capacity – finding the boundaries of the psychedelia that the band has kept as their signature.
