CD of The Week

The Flaming Lips haven't put out a proper follow-up to 2009's sprawling Embryonic, but they've nonetheless remained busy. Following a crack at covering Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety (a no-brainer on paper, but ultimately somewhat off-putting), the band embarked upon a series of stunts, such as a live re-recording of The Soft Bulletin released on a flash drive encased in a weed-flavored brain wrapped in a gummy skull, a six-hour song featuring Sean Lennon entitled "6-Hour Song," and a 24-hour song released on a hard drive embedded in a real human skull. The Lips balanced these with a series of limited edition collaborative EPs with artists as diverse as Neon Indian, Prefuse 73, Lightning Bolt and Yoko Ono.

Those EPs form the bedrock of The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, which includes tracks from those EPs, as well as new collaborations with an even more mind-bogglingly varied roster of artists, from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes and My Morning Jacket's Jim James to Erykah Badu and Ke$ha. You wouldn't expect such a strange assortment to mesh as well as it does, but then again, we're talking about the Flaming Lips here. Not only do they make it work, but they make a team-up with Ke$ha seem like the most sensible thing in the world. Their album opener, "2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)," sees the Lips and Ke$ha (with an assist from the legendary Biz Markie) create a convincing slice of dystopian electro on acid. Remarkably enough, the Bon Iver collaboration that follows, "Ashes in the Air," keeps up the cataclysmic, sci-fi theme, in its thick synthesizer soundscapes and its gonzo lyrics ("We thought we could outrun them/But they have robot dogs"). It recalls "All We Have is Now" from their classic album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, marrying deep sentiment with crushing nihilism.

It's that apocalyptic romance vibe that holds the record together, through the space-folk of "Helping the Retarded to Find God" to their Prefuse 73 teaming, "The Supermoon Made Me Want to Pee," an escalating fever dream that sounds like Embryonic's "The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine" on uppers. Nick Cave takes control on his track, "You, Man? Human???" which sounds like what might happen if he recorded tracks while on nitrous. There's even a curious bit of avant dance with Yoko Ono, simply titled "Do It!" It's not a wholly perfect album; the dirgelike cover of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" drones on just a little too long. But for the most part, it's a solid effort that sees the Lips project their essential oddness, no matter who rides shotgun.

If you want to see the Lips, among fwends, check them out this weekend at the Firefly Music Festivalin Dover, DE.