Zaireeka [Import, Limited Edition, CD]

But suffice to say, I was blown away. It's been a whole day and I've thought of little other than this album.

What does it sound like? Imagine a song that isn't just presented to you on disc so that it sounds the same way every time... Imagine assembling the song yourself from a variety of ambient noises that happen to sound good together (well, most of them do)... Imagine hearing so many sounds at the same time that your brain keeps jumping uncontrollably from one to the next, assembling harmonies and sonorities on the fly out of all the organized chaos you're assaulted with. Imagine lead vocals, in one tempo, coming at you from one corner of the room, while a trumpet solo harmonizes the vocals from across the room, its tempo just a little off-kilter so that it drags a little further behind the vocals each measure, warping your sense of time. All the while, trippy ambient sounds enwrap you from all sides. And this is just one moment of one track of "Zaireeka."

The lyrics are sad and disturbing and terrifying, telling stories of insanity and suicide, but yet it's all a beautiful and transcendent experience to listen to, and not a depressing one. And the lyrics, while they add shades of meaning to the tracks, are certainly not of central importance -- I barely caught any of them, because I was so entranced by the other sounds I was hearing.

This reminds me a whole lot of the first time I heard Floyd's "Dark Side," but imagine taking the sound stage of that album to a whole new level -- adding weirder sonorities, adding the spatial element of the four CD's, and adding another time dimension in the in-and-out-of-phase cycling of the four discs, as the separate tracks get into synch with each other and then unravel slowly, again and again. Basically, this record must be heard (and heard with all four discs) to be believed. Even if you normally hate this kind of music, it's a sound experience that will change you. I like to imagine that when people heard a record like "Dark Side" for the first time, back in the day, they felt like I felt yesterday after hearing "Zaireeka" for the first time. Hopefully this disc will eventually be recognized as just as groundbreaking and ingenious as "Dark Side," provided enough people have access to 4 CD players in one room...

Zaireeka is another experimental group of "Soft Bulletin"-era compositions by the Lips, and does not fail to disappoint novice listeners or seasoned Lips fans.

The only problem keeping this review from 5 stars is in the "concept" of the album. It is split into 4-discs making casual listening next to impossible.

The recording and production of the discs are poor and the 4-disc concept may have been used to hide timing errors in the Lips performance in the studio, which makes exact execution impossible when all of the playback tracks are slightly staggered.

The reviewers suggestion: 1) Buy the album and download a backup copy off of the internet from someone who knows sound production and has mixed the discs together to 1 CD to be able to casually listen to it.

2) Learn sound production and record albums that are a better caliber than this one that doesn't use a "concept" to hide production errors.