Few active rock bands consistently bring the weird like The Flaming Lips. Resonant, immersive sonic experiences are the band’s calling card. On American Head, their 16th studio album, Wayne Coyne and company explore somber tones and rapturous uplift. An atmospheric yet somewhat gentle affair, the record nevertheless skirts abrasiveness at…

Many of us know a “record nerd,” a subset of aficionados with encyclopedic knowledge of and acerbic opinions about some musical niche or other. Record nerds wax poetically on the merits of the recording console at Sunset Sound, or the natural reverb in Abbey Road’s studio two. But many…

The morning after Donald Trump was elected president, I cried in my car like many others with a knowledge of history and a functioning ability to empathize, listening to The Flaming Lips “Waiting for Superman.” I was sad and, looking back, probably a little naive, wondering how the political…

It’s almost 2020. We’re living in an era when many of science fiction’s classics are supposed to take place. As a science fiction writer and a scholar who studies the genre, I’m acutely aware that we are not yet living in the stainless steel techno-utopia we were promised. Where’s…

Clockwise from top left: Clipping., Nile, Stephen Malkmus, Taylor Swift, The Futureheads, The Claypool Lennon Delirium, Coldplay, The Flaming Lips featuring the Colorado Symphony, Lights and The New Pornographers. We’ve reached the end of 2019, meaning the time has come to look back over all the great music the…

LSD can make the environment seem more vibrant; vivid colors throb and pulsate, and sounds take on new contortions. A band long associated with mystical voyaging, The Flaming Lips performed their legendary 1999 album, The Soft Bulletin, with the 68-member Colorado Symphony and a 57-voice choir for a very lucky audience…

The Flaming Lips perform at BottleRock Napa Valley on May 10, 2013. OAKLAND — There’s a feeling you get on hallucinogenic drugs that’s a little like an astronaut in a space capsule reentering the atmosphere: a fear that grips you as you’re traveling at tremendous speeds, hurtling through the thin…

The Flaming Lips‘ new extraterrestrial rock opera about the “love generation” and drug-induced sleep, Oczy Mlody, is a surprisingly beautiful ode to nature and troubles that lie ahead. The album opens up with “Oczy Mlody,” which sets the scene with deep melodies and kaleidoscopic bass lines meant for the cold reaches of…

The Flaming Lips perform at the 2014 Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in San Francisco. Roman Gokhman/STAFF. A recap of the 2014 rendition of the festival in photos and more than two hours of videos! DAY 1 Typhoon performs at the 2014 Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival…

The Flaming Lips perform during Halloween Blood Bath at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Oct. 31, 2013. Roman Gokhman/STAFF. The Flaming Lips are not ones to underemphasize any part of a live performance. A typical gig might include streamers, confetti, a state-of-the-art light show and a giant human hamster…