This is a rather interesting
concept album by the
Flaming Lips. It was 8 songs on 4
stereo cd's for a grand total of 8
tracks. You have to play all 4 cd's at the same time to get the full
effect, listening to 1 or 2 doesn't really do much. Now, this poses the first
problem... Who owns 4 cd players? I don't... I got together with a
friend and we got together a home
stereo, a
dvd player hooked up to a tv, and two
boomboxes. Ideally, if you had 4 nice stereo setups in an
empty room with easily movable speakers, you'd be set. Step one, try to get the
timing down so they start at the same time. We started them all and then at the same time and then hit back at the
count of three to send them to the beginning at the
theoretical same time. Of course, some of the
cd players didn't go back at the same time, so it took some trial and error, but we got it down.
Bad news, some of the tracks on the cd's aren't the same length (Note: according to discofever, the tracks are all the same length but most cd players don't play each song for the same lenth so this is where the error comes in), so get used to re-syncing it (luckily we only had to do it once, after track 3). Ok, so we listened. Wierd. They mixed it funny, so that even if you start the cd's in perfect sync, it won't be quite in sync. You get a cool echo effect. Sometimes it was a pretty neat effect, a fun room of sound, other times it was annoying. It was a lot of hassle.
As for the music, well, if you've listened to them before, you know what to expect. Except, a few of the tracks are really annoying, even for a Flaming Lips song. One of the songs featured a screeching sound all the way through that made you want to break the cd. The last song ended with some very loud and disoriented dog barking. So some of it was cool (especially the song about his girlfriends period entitled The Machine in India), and other parts were really annoying.
In summary, I laughed, I cried, I cried some more, I wanted to break the cd, I laughed again, I wept, I vomited, I crooned, I danced, I sang, and then I cried again. It's worth listening too, however I think they should re-release it on DVD Audio and cut the tracks down a bit. Oh yeah, this is out of print, so good luck. There are usually copies on eBay, or you can download the mp3's and burn them :)