Telepathic Surgery Restless Records, 1989 1877-72350-2
1. Drug Machine In Heaven 2. Right Now 3. Michael, Time To Wake Up 4. Chrome Plated Suicide 5. Hari-Krishna Stomp Wagon (Fuck Led Zeppelin) 6. Miracle On 42nd Street 7. U.F.O. Story 8. Redneck School Of Technology 9. Shaved Gorilla 10. The Spontaneous Combustion Of John 11. The Last Drop Of Morning Dew 12. Begs And Achin' produced by The Flaming Lips, engineered by Ruben Ayala
The Flaming Lips third album for Restless records was based around their desire to create a piece of music which would be a half an hour collage of sound. To do this they needed to make an album and thus they wrote Telepathic Surgery. The title is a phrase they use to describe the action of something getting in your mind and `fucking with your head' because you think about it too much. The record itself is something of a patchy affair, and it's fairly well-known that Wayne and Mike are unhappy with it for a few reasons: Richard English was in the process of not being in a position to record much for the album and Wayne and Mike actually had to do one or two songs without him to fill the album. It's also a fairly dark record - very moody and it doesn't flow like their other creations. Having said all that, it still has some great songs on it - like Chrome Plated Suicide, a song all about falling in love and not knowing what to do about it; and Drug Machine, later released as a Sub Pop single. The track UFO story is really cool - featuring as it does a story from Wayne about UFO's followed by some crazy noises and my favourite piece of piano music ever (I think it was played by Mike, but it's glorious whatever). The Flaming Lips' quirkiness is still well in evidence - here we have some classic little ditties that save the album by making it somewhat different - short songs like Shaved Gorilla have almost frightening symbolism within them (well, for me anyway....). Actually, that song sums up the album fairly well - it's all about not fitting in and being uncomfortable, doing something about that and regretting it. But that something on the surface is fairly cool, and then its not worth worrying about anymore.......

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