In A Priest Driven Ambulance (With Silver Sunshine Stares) Restless Records, 1990 1877-72359-2
1. Shine On Sweet Jesus - Jesus Song No.5 2. Unconsciously Screamin' 3. Rainin' Babies 4. Take Meta Mars 5. Five Stop Mother Superior Rain 6. Stand In Line 7. God Walks Among Us Now - Jesus Song No. 6 8. There You Are - Jesus Song No. 7 9. Mountain Side 10. What A Wonderful World Produced by The Flaming Lips and Dave Fridmann
After the departure of Richard English, the Flaming Lips gradually reformed, resulting in a line-up containing founder members Wayne Coyne and Michael Ivins, along with Nathan Roberts on drums and Jon Donahue making mental noises on second guitar. As it happened, Restless Records folded soon after the album came out but the important thing was that the pink vinyl `In A Priest Driven Ambulance With Silver Sunshine Stares' was born. In 1993, Michael has been quoted as saying that this is the album with which he was still happiest - `perfect except for one song'. Perfect packaging, perfect atmosphere - it's a near-perfect album. The addition of a second guitarist created a fairly radical departure for The Flaming Lips. Although Wayne had often put two or more guitar tracks on the songs for past albums, Dingus brought a whole new sound to the band. Now it was like one guitar playing the melody with another creating incredible texture to the songs with all sorts of crazy noises, hitherto heard only on records by art-noise rockers like Sonic Youth and even then not quite in the same league as this approach. From start to finish, the album has a massively NEW sound to it. I think it's not unreasonable to claim that music had never been made quite like this before. This was the sound of four people going into a recording studio with a knowledgeable friend at the desk (Dave Fridmann) and recording songs like they were the last thing they would do as a band. This was because they truly believed that this was the case. The Flaming Lips thought they had reached their expiry date. Playing the way they wanted to reaped benefits though - they came to the attention of Warner Bros. records as a result and a deal followed. The album is full of classic songs - The Jesus Christ Psychopath song cycle runs through the album (Jesus Songs 5 - 7 are on it) and great songs like Five Stop Mother Superior Rain and the epic Mountainside all were spawned from the hive of creativity that was The Flaming Lips at this time. The album ends with the Lips taking the classic song What A Wonderful World for their very own - the song becomes even more special. Many times has it been suggested by many people that, even though the new Lips is perhaps a more cohesive unit, this time was special and will never be equalled for the sheer creativity through freedom it represented. The music on this album is well nigh impossible to describe and any attempt to do so would belittle it - just buy it and listen, for your own sake because this is the epitome of cool.

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