Yoshimi Battles the Highly Collectible Uniquely Colored Limited Edition Robots

November 26, 2011 9:01 AM

In summer 2011 The Flaming Lips released collaborative vinyl EPs with Lightning Bolt, Neon Indian and Prefuse 73. The 'starter blob' of vinyl for each disc was assembled by hand using random amounts of different vinyl colors, ensuring that every record would be unique. Here are a couple of Flickr photosets of the finished products (and a bit of the process) as they came off the presses.

All three EPs are out of print.

Lightning Bolt
Neon Indian
Prefuse 73
The Flaming Lips' 2011 exploits previously

posted by mintcake! (15 comments total)

Those turned out great, I wish I'd known about this sooner.
posted by june made him a gemini at 9:09 AM on November 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow! Those are awesome! I hadn't heard about this before. I love Lightning Bolt and I can only imagine how mind-melting a collaboration between them and the Flaming Lips would be.
posted by Frobenius Twist at 9:23 AM on November 26, 2011

Surprisingly, they're still available for semi-reasonable prices.
posted by mykescipark at 9:25 AM on November 26, 2011

So if you were to play one of these works of art on your turntable, how would it sound? Would this unique process produce records that sound worse than albums made from more conventional blobs of vinyl?
posted by blue t-shirt at 9:25 AM on November 26, 2011

So if you were to play one of these works of art on your turntable, how would it sound?

Depends how involved Lightning Bolt was...
posted by nathancaswell at 9:40 AM on November 26, 2011 [6 favorites]

Those look cool. Also the mention of fancy coloured vinyl reminded me to listen to this awesome song for the first time in years.
posted by w0mbat at 10:20 AM on November 26, 2011

The Lightning Bolt one is. Weird psych-rocky, borderline unlistenable and not in a "noise" way. Kind of plods? There are a few moments of OMGWTF, but a lot of it feels like the stuff that probably usually gets left on the demos reel.
posted by GilloD at 11:01 AM on November 26, 2011

So if you were to play one of these works of art on your turntable, how would it sound?

I've find most colored vinyl to be rather dull sounding, but then I also spend time on forums where people place crystals on their receivers to enhance the listening experience. The exception has been some German and Japanese red vinyl pressings of the transparent variety, not the opaque swirly stuff. But again...crystals. Magic quantum clocks. Stereo psychics that will improve audio fidelity over the telephone.
posted by Lorin at 1:28 PM on November 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

fuck yes lightning bolt
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 1:41 PM on November 26, 2011

Well, at least these releases are of necessarily limited duration...but damn they are pleasing to the eye!
posted by obscurator at 1:45 PM on November 26, 2011

Gettin ready for Christmas from Wayne Coyne's twitter. NSFW

I need to get on his christmas card list
posted by Sailormom at 3:59 PM on November 26, 2011 [2 favorites]

blue t-shirt: "So if you were to play one of these works of art on your turntable, how would it sound? Would this unique process produce records that sound worse than albums made from more conventional blobs of vinyl?"

It would sound precisely the same. Anybody who tells you otherwise is one of those crazy believers in magical hi-fi mumbo-jumbo like wrapping magnetic dampeners on the plug on your refrigerator in the kitchen three rooms away to decrease "interference" on your turntable. Like, er, Lorin over there. (No offense, Lorin.)
posted by koeselitz at 8:39 PM on November 26, 2011

Wow, I like all four of these groups and had no idea they were getting their respective jams in each others' peanut butter... great post, thanks.
posted by en forme de poire at 8:05 AM on November 27, 2011

Prefuse... new album? omgomgomg.
posted by stratastar at 7:50 PM on November 27, 2011

More mega-psychedelic vinyl being made in Dallas at Stan's place!!@NewFumes you rule!! via
posted by Sailormom at 4:03 PM on December 13, 2011