Battlemouth

Pink Floyd’s album The Dark Side of the Moon is generally acknowledged to be one of the greatest albums of all time, and a key influence on a number of modern musical artists. It is one of the albums I grew up listening to and have carried through into my adulthood as one of my favourites. The album’s notable use of musique concrète and conceptual, philosophical lyrics resonate strongly with myself and its other listeners, and is truly something that needs to be explored in its entirety, rather than its parts.

The Flaming Lips are somewhat of an enigma to me. Their musicianship is technically sound, and I do love their Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots album, but I’m not sure I “get” their music on the whole. Their approach to music presents itself often with glimpses of pure genius, but this is often occluded by over-experimentation. With this in mind, it was with some trepidation that I heard the news that the Flaming Lips were doing a track-by-track remake of the classic album.

The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches Doing The Dark Side of the Moon (a highly unwieldy name, mercifully shortened to The Dark Side of the Moon) is a bit of family affair. Stardeath and White Dwarfs is the band of Dennis Coyne, who is the nephew of Flaming Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne, and they fit in well playing with the older band. They are joined by Henry Rollins, who recreates the original album’s interview samples, as well as Peaches, who performs Clare Torry’s vocal segments.

Right from the start of the album, the listener is quick to discover that the remake is not a true tribute, but rather an interpretation. The first two tracks are performed by both bands together, and both the jagged bass groove and distorted guitar turn the tracks into some psychedelic disco mess; almost unrecognisable from the originals.

The third track, Time/Breathe (Reprise), is where Stardeath steps up by themselves and presents an interesting interpretation. They replace the clockwork rhythm with coughing and panting (very much like Inuit katajjaq) and kick into an over-distorted guitar intro before fading in and out of a mellow lyrical piece. Dennis Coyne’s voice is nice and light, and weaves well in counterpoint with the changing music.

The Great Gig in the Sky and Money (from the Flaming Lips alone) are almost write-offs for me. They are presented as a discordant nightmare of stressed instrumentation and over-the-top synthesised voice effects. The Flaming Lips then follow this up with Us and Them, which is quite faithful to the original whilst still experimenting with the musical effects, albeit toned down a lot from the previous tracks and to good effect. The final three tracks follow the examples set before. Any Colour You Like and Eclipse feature both the Flaming Lips and Stardeath, and are psychedelic rock versions of the originals. Brain Damage is just performed by Stardeath, and again evolves into a nice interpretation.

The album overall is quite unusual and rather a mismatch of styles; this can only be expected when you have two bands working like this. My feeling is that this album would really be for Flaming Lips fans, and it would be an acquired taste for anyone else. However, as I accidentally found out today, if you turn off your thinking and forget that you’re listening to a remake, it’s like a switch is thrown in your head and you begin to appreciate the album for its own merits. When this happens, the album with all of its quirks and idiosyncrasies actually becomes quite enjoyable. The one questionable component of the album that I can’t bring myself to enjoy or like in any way is Peaches. I have never heard any of her music before and, after her performance on this album, I won’t be in any hurry to seek any of it out. In contrast, Henry Rollins highly-recognisable dry voice is used to good effect throughout the album.

This album just adds to the enigma that is the Flaming Lips. On one hand, you have an album that you’re not really sure what to make of, and in which you can struggle to find benefits. On the other hand, if you forget you’re listening to a Pink Floyd remake, the true genius of the album emerges. I for one will be listening to this version of The Dark Side of the Moon more – not to analyse the similarities to the original, but to discover what other gems are hidden within.