They are Oklahoma’s beloved Fearless Freaks, with nearly 30 years experience of delivering psychedelic rock, and now they’re taking their penchant for wigged-out collaborations to Perth’s leaders in psychedelic rock and one of Australia’s most important music exports.
The Flaming Lips and Tame Impala have been playing shows together for the last month or so and the band have now taken their tour-mateship into the studio, where both bands have recorded covers of each other’s work for an exclusive release.
The four-track vinyl EP will feature two recordings a piece from both psychelicious rock bands, with The Flaming Lips covering two Tame Impala tracks, and vice versa, as Flaming Lips fansite The Future Heart reports.
Lead ‘Flip Wayne Coyne recently confirmed the collaboration on his (brand new) Instagram account (after having his old account deleted for posting psycho-sexual imagery), posting an image of a hand-drawn lyric sheet for Tame Impala track ‘Runway, Houses, City, Clouds’, with the following message:
As well as recording the Innerspeaker epic, the ‘Lips have also recorded a version of Tame Impala’s major Lonerism single, ‘Elephant’, with a video showing band member Steve Drozd tracking bass, keys, and guitar for the new vinyl release. From the footage it sounds like the band are taking a more direct approach than the electro-jam that World’s End Press recently turned the rock stomper into for their recent Triple J Like A Version performance.
As for Tame Impala, Kevin Parker and his Perth rock cosmonauts recently debuted live covers of Flaming Lips tracks, including performing ‘Silver Trembling Hands’ at a concert in Dublin in mid-August, then a cover of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots cut ‘Are You A Hypnotist?’ at the Rock En Seine festival. The final tracklist for the four-track vinyl release is yet to be confirmed, but it’s presumed that the flip side will feature studio recorded versions of Tame Impala’s live tributes.
The split vinyl release is set to be a highly sought after collector’s item, with Wayne Coyne noting that the 4-track EP will be “only available at the shows,” likely referring to the two bands’ combined international gigs in late October and early November, including the Flaming Lips’ Halloween Blood Bath show in San Francisco on October 31st.
The Flaming Lips/Tame Impala collaborative EP is actually one of a slew of new special releases from the band in special team-ups with a variety of artists, as The Future Heart points out; including an EP inspired by the forthcoming sci-fi blockbuster Ender’s Game, a tribute album to The Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album featuring Ke$ha and Foxygen (among others), as well as plans to release a white chocolate skull for Record Store Day 2015 (you just can’t make this stuff up).
Meanwhile, in related psych rock team-up news, Tame Impala’s sister band Pond (fronted by former bassist Nick Allbrook) have a collaborative album with UK band The Horrors in the can and awaiting release, while MGMT have touted “something crazy” with Pond for the pair’s dual appearance at the upcoming Falls Festival.
