This was a very special Off The Record. Our stalwart host Joe had been suggesting that we listen to the Flaming Lips’ infamous “Zaireeka” for several years now, and we decided to unleash it for our final 2022 event. Here’s how Joe described it:
“Zaireeka” is the eighth album by the psychedelic rock band The Flaming Lips. It was released on four CDs which need to be played simultaneously to hear the complete composition.
It emerged in 1997, a year after their guitarist Ronald Jones left the band and left the remaining members in a quandary - how could they continue as a live act when such an important member was missing? They decided to try an experimental show of playing multiple cassette tapes with different sounds at the same time. This eventually led to the idea of an album for people at home to listen on multiple CD players.
Off the Record is an event for people to come together to listen to a record at the same time. Zaireeka requires people to work together to enable the album to be heard. It’s a match made in heaven (or hell).
You might ask - why not just mix the whole thing down to two tracks and play it normally? It’s been done. Flaming Lips main man Wayne Coyne has this to say on the matter: “If you put all these tracks together, you take away what really is its greatest gift: that it’s a fucking unmanageable, you know, cloud of sound attacking you.” Well, how can you resist that?
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On the night, the OTR hosts took it upon themselves to bring a bunch of audio equipment over to the venue and set it up so the four of us could each trigger our own assigned disc of the album. We assembled a motley-looking collection of hifi pairs, bluetooth speakers, tablets, phones and laptops (plus bonus disco lights) to assemble the sound:
Our audio setup – Photo by Lucy Beth
Before the night started, we practiced our synchronised start. It turns out that each track of the record differs in length across the four CDs, so each time a song ends, the “performers” (eg. the people driving the CD players) need to re-synchronise the next song, which for us involved a countdown and all pressing “play” at the same time.
Needless to say, when we began the performance of the first song, we messed it up and had to have another go:
Here’s our second (more successful) attempt:
Video by Matt Latham
Once we got going, we eventually found a bit of a rhythm, and by the final track we were pretty slick when it came to starting the songs together. Nobody in the audience was persuaded to give the album a second listen after the first 40 minutes, though…
After a break (and a well-earned drink for the “performers”), we discussed the album. People loved the experience. I can’t stress this enough: lots of folks were really excited to hear it in this way (and various people had tried to experience it previously and never quite got it right). There was a sense that we all got to experience something unusual and exciting together which seemed to transcend the music itself.
Our valiant performers – Photo by Andrea
After discussing our thoughts, we ask the audience to give a score and a word to sum up the album. Our average score was 7.6 / 10, and here are the words the OTR audience chose to describe the experience of listening to Zaireeka across four discs:
- encompassing
- unrealised
- event
- perpsective
- statistical
- performance
- organic
- resonance
- arty
- hypnotic
- surreal
- octophonic
- communal
- gateway
- indeterminacy
- indulgent
- madness
- coalescence
Thanks to everyone for coming along, and Joe for making it happen!
Our fearless leader Joe – Photo by Carl
Spotify playlist of songs
See above to see who nominated each song which matched our theme, "Weird Formats".