The Flaming Lips - Oczy Mlody

The Flaming Lips album Oczy Mlody is three years in the making since its predecessor With A Little of my Fwends. The album artwork reminds me of the multidimensional character, Prismo, from the popular Cartoon Network show Adventure Time. Oczy Mlody blasts beautiful, strange, euphoric sounds through the voice of Wayne Coyne.

Colorful tones from beefy fuzzy bass and synth continue the familiar Lips’ sound that I fell in love with on their past album Embryonic. The self titled track one “Oczy Mlody” introduces itself to you as a beautiful instrumental track. It’s as if Oczy Mlody declares its presence and demands your attention. The second track titled “How??” gave me a sense of how Oczy Mlody may not be able to convey an emotion to me in words. I like to view the lyrics as a way of the Flaming Lips reminding me how to enjoy their music and what they enjoy doing. As the lyrics unfold into track three “...there should be unicorns”, I feel as though Wayne is speaking to us about the uniqueness of unicorns, as he tells us to “...get the purple eyed unicorns over the green ones.” Favoring the color of purple over green eyes and categorizing green eyes with an illness was funny and interesting. Later in the song, spoken word from Reggie Watts repeats Coyne’s declaration. Hearing Reggie’s voice was a delightful surprise. He’s been one of my favorite entertainers in recent years.

The following track “Sunrise (eyes of the young)” gave me a great peaceful feeling of hope. The delay effects from the piano add a positive touch that give the song a mirthful feeling as Coyne uses the idea of seeing a sunrise. It’s a lovely song that transitions into my favorite song “Nidgy Nie(Never No)” which is predominantly instrumental; just what I enjoy most from the Flaming Lips. At around 1:20 the song brings in a kick ass bass fuzz that I couldn’t help but start rocking out too. I first heard this song while driving at night and was ready to press repeat so I could listen to synth and guitar at such a quick tempo, back tracked by a hip-hop type of beat. Later, in the song, a heavy synth fuzz beat comes in when the bass drops. This is The Flaming Lips getting together and saying ,”let’s fucking jam”. I am impressed with how the track flowed with the following track. “Galaxy I Sink” continued a hip-hop beat that met an echoed electric guitar. Coynes sensual lyrics have a very strong glow.

The following track “One Night While Hunting for Faeries and Witches and Wizards to Kill” is a fun creative track that includes some horns, whistling, and bell chimes. The tapping of a wooden block or synth type block kept me interested to hear what else was going to happen with the song. The bells of “O.N.W.H.F.F.A.W.” blend into the following track ”Do Glowy” which makes both songs feel as they should just be one. The following song “Listening to the Frogs with Demon Eyes” is where I enjoy hearing Coyne’s singing. Coyne’s lyrics, “I can’t see the moon, but I know it’s there. I can’t see the the end, but I know it’s there,” are reminiscent of the spooky terrifying tones that the Flaming Lips gave me in past albums. At some points in this track I felt I heard frogs croaking.

The next track was annotated by Coyne and said the following about “The Castle”, [it is a]“...delicate whimsical song really came to life as soon as I sang (into my phone .. It was the only recording device I had in that moment)...as being very very sad and so, to me, because I was convinced of its power (the power of this sadness it allowed me to sing these utterly silly romantic lyrics as a way of masking something horrible and brutal and fucked up and unspeakable.” I then thought about the idea of sadness after reading his quote. Coyne sounded slightly helpless as we hear his voice. That song made me I feel like I was a character living inside a castle and partying with friends. Coyne describes the castle as “an island among the clouds...and the castle can never be rebuilt again, no way.” Being that I have never lived in a castle, but I treat myself like everyday as I did, this song became one of my favorites off the album.

The final track, “We a family”, is a nice track to sing alongside other people. The track features Coyne’s most recent ‘BFF’ Miley Cyrus. Way to go Miley keeping it with the psychedelic waves. The track is about missing someone, who is family (or not), and yearning to reunite with them. Perfect song for the two, Coyne and Cyrus, to give to the rest of the world. At first I was unsure about this album, but as I listened to it over the first two weeks it was released I think it’s a good one to jam and one not to forget if you really enjoy it.

by KF