Back in the late eighties, it’s doubtful that anyone predicted that the shambling Flaming Lips would outlast most of their contemporaries to become venerable art rockers. What sets them apart from fellow indie-statesmen Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth, is how remarkably bad the band was initially when it first started in 1983. As much-beloved live performers, the Lips’ shows consisted of nearly incoherently psychedelic originals and sloppy, intensely noisy covers of bands like Led Zeppelin. Their evolution was so gradual and smooth, no one blinked an eye when 1999’s The Soft Bulletin not only incorporated homages to late sixties Beach Boys, but also Yes’ Close to The Edge. More sonic architects than rock band now, The Lips have nevertheless rounded out their revolutionary arc by eschewing an impenetrable, convoluted version of Tales Of Topographic Oceans and have instead produced a more modest, emotional album.
ot quite as ambitious and groundbreaking as The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots may ultimately get more playtime than its predecessor, at least here at F ‘n’ B. Loosely tied together by the band’s connections to Japan via culture and friendship, the catalyst for Yoshimi was the unexpected and mysterious death of a friend in Osaka, and their attempt in “It’s Summertime” to console her surviving sisters. The result is a Manga-like heroine with a name borrowed from Yoshimi P-We, the drummer of cosmic noise rockers The Boredoms. The songs are less a story than an allegory of mortality, love and friendship, bringing …Bulletin‘s bleakly existentialist cosmic musings down to earth.
The sonic experimentation is still here — innovative beats and wobbly tones warped by electronica — but they are so subtly integrated that it’s the songs rather than the sounds that stand out. “Fight Test” begins with gladiatorial combat, featuring one of the most infectious melodies The Lips have ever created. “One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21” is just as wonderful, a hypnotic electronic movement with weedy, warbling vocals so warm and earnest that only Wayne Coyne (and perhaps Neil Young) can pull off, convincing us that the robot programmed to kill seems to fall in love with its adversary “’cause it’s hard to say what’s real- when you know the way you feel.” The battle culminates in “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt. 2,” consisting of repetitive rising and falling electronic bleeps and screeching war cries, ultimately the least satisfying track on the album. The achingly gorgeous, orchestral “In The Morning of the Magicians” more than makes up for it as it ruminates on the relationship of love and hate. To some the sentimentality and optimism in “It’s Summertime (Throbbing Orange Pallbearers),” “Do You Realize?” (“that everyone you know will someday die – and instead of saying all of your goodbyes – let them know you realize that life goes fast its hard to make the good things last”) may seem glib, but really it shows the band bravely avoiding a cynical façade and simply letting pure emotion wash over them. The extraordinarily uplifting latter song and transcendental “All We Have Is Now” prove how great songwriting can be as powerful and healing as anything. Yoshimi may not bend your mind, but it’ll move your soul.
