Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

The Flaming Lips: Wayne Coyne (vocals, guitar); Michael Ivins (guitar, bass, background vocals); Steve Drozd (guitar, drums, background vocals). Producers: The Flaming Lips, Dave Fridmann, Scott Booker. Recorded at Tarbox Road Studios, Cassadaga, New York between June 2000 & April 2001. Emerging sometime in the '80s, Oklahoma boys The Flaming Lips have held steady to a peripheral, but significant location in the indie-rock world, visionaries blessed with a hyper-keen pop sensibility. In 1999, four years removed from the surprise alterna-pop hit She Don't Use Jelly, the trio fronted by the fetching, impelling whisper of Wayne Coyne hit a remarkably high note, making scores of year-end 'best of' lists with THE SOFT BULLETIN, a mellifluous, masterful slice of Brian Wilson-level pop distorted through a few looking glasses. Following an acclaimed album is always a craggy cliff of anticipation, but if BULLETIN was the Flaming Lips' PET SOUNDS, then the ethereal YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS may be their SMILEY SMILE, a record which skillfully straddles the line between pop and experimentation. YOSHIMI offers lush, enveloping arrangements, forging a soundscape both comfortably predictable and satisfyingly, even dizzyingly, diverse, awash in Todd Rundgren-like grandiosity, yet startlingly simple in structure like the better work of Paul McCartney. Despite having the air of a quasi-concept album, YOSHIMI betrays little pretension, even in the face of the Lips' trademark deceptively complex lyrics. The exceptional YOSHIMI easily cements the Flaming Lips' place in the vanguard of the rock world.