I am Kyle's self-indulgence

In the film Man on the Moon is a memorable scene in which George Shapiro (played by Danny DeVito), after meeting Andy Kaufman, tells him, "You're insane...but you might also be brilliant." These words come to mind every time I listen to Zaireeka, the four-CD simultaneous play album released exactly one year ago today.

After losing their guitarist in 1996 The Flaming Lips were left wondering what they would do with a 3-piece band. They decided to take the opportunity to experiment with what kinds of sounds they could create in the studio, without worrying about how they would reproduce them in a live show.

At the same time the band began taking an interest in creating music through multiple sound sources. There are several stories Wayne Coyne has told to explain where their inspiration came from. According to one account they were listening to remixes on singles by Bjork and The Beastie Boys and decided to play multiple mixes of the same song simultaneously. They noticed that the alternate mixes and the slightly different playback speeds of the CD players caused the songs to slip in and out of synch. They were interested in how well the songs fit together, but also in the chaotic and unpredictable nature of the experience, and the set out to replicate this experience through their own recordings.

After conducting multiple sound source experiments with car stereos The Flaming Lips eventually worked their sound constructions into a (relatively) marketable form with Zaireeka.

Ten years late it's still baffling that they managed to convince Warner Bros. Records to release an album that requires the listener to play four CDs simultaneously. With three previous albums released through their major label and four independent albums before that, The Flaming Lips had one fluke radio hit and a moderate fan following to show for it. Through some miracle their Manager, Scott Booker, convinced Warner Bros. to release the album, with the agreement that it would not count toward the total number of albums the band was contracted to record and that their next album would be a more serious effort. This turned out to be the best possible arrangement for all parties, for the band applied their multi-instrumental approach to The Soft Bulletin and the two albums that followed out. All three albums received high praise from critics and were more commercially successful than any of the band's previous work.

But enough about the events surrounding Zaireeka's release. Is the album itself worth a listen? Only if you're ready for a sonic experience that's like nothing else you've ever heard.

It's important to keep in mind that The Flaming Lips did not approach the songwriting for this project the way they would a normal album. They were not interested in merely dividing normal songs up between four CDs, but rather in creating eight very distinct and very different experiments conceived specifically for this unique medium. One composition is actually made up of four different and conflicting songs that are joined by the same vocal track. Another features all the music on one CD and disorienting ringing sounds in the extreme upper and lower pitch ranges on the other three. These more bizarre experiments reveal a band throwing everything they have against a wall and looking to see what sticks.

That's not to say that the album is merely pointless experimentation, though. Most of the material on Zaireeka really does work musically, and the wall of sound generated by four CD players makes it more than four times as exciting. The greatest moment on the album is the instrumental "March of the Rotten Vegetables." The track starts with a delicate and melancholy tune alternating back and forth between speakers, right to left and front to back. This melody gradually gives way to a piano and Steven Drozd's heavy drumming on one set of speakers, then two. The piano drops out and the track is taken over by an all-out drum solo that builds until a range of distorted percussion tracks are coming out of every speaker. The rhythm is lost in a chaotic fireball of drumming before it suddenly burns out and out of the silence re-emerges the song's delicately plodding melody.

Ultimately, though, any attempt to describe Zaireeka fails. It's something that must be experienced firsthand, and every experience is different. Listeners are encouraged to try combinations of two, three, or all four CDs on different devices and at various volumes. Factor in the unpredictable playback speeds of CD players and the resulting possibilities are infinite.