UPDATE-Stream Tame Impala/ Flaming Lips Peace and Paranoia EP

UPDATE – November 29th
Tame Impala and The Flaming Lips’ Peace and Paranoia split EP – previously only available at their three Blood Baths and The Womb’s Oliver Hibert exhibit opening – will be released in the UK on December 18th (pre-order here) and is in stock today at the following US stores.  Preview the vinyl with a stream of the full record below.

UPDATE – November 2nd
The Flaming Lips released two EPs this week.  The first, Peace Sword, is new music inspired by and partly used in the film Ender’s Game – in theaters worldwide this weekend.  Stream this entire record for free here or download it here.  The second is Peace and Paranoia, a collaborative tour EP with Tame Impala issued especially for their Halloween Blood Baths and featuring the two bands covering each other.   So far this limited-edition-vinyl-only-release has sold exclusively at their three Blood Bath concerts.  In addition to collaborating on this EP members of Tame Impala and The Flaming Lips also sat in each others sets at the Greek Theatre Blood Bath on October 29th, San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium’s Hallowe’en Blood Bath and Santa Barbara Bowl’s All Hallows Day Blood Bath (including Wayne Coyne fronting Tame Impala on “Are You a Hypnotist?” with Steven Drozd on drums – watch below, after the EP stream, and read more details here). Many Peace and Paranoia copies sold last night were autographed by both bands (shown above, right).  All 2000 pressings of the EP have finished production and about 1500 will sell online soon.

UPDATE – October 31st
The Flaming Lips and Tame Impala split Peace and Paranoia EP with  is out now.  Get you limited edition copy for $30 at one of the Tame Lips gigs this week. Not at the shows? Worry not –  “a thousand copies [will be] available on-line … maybe next week!!!” according to Wayne Coyne.  Some of the pressings that will sell at store.flaminglips.com are still being made, so don’t be surprised if it’s more like two weeks before they become available.  Each copy is a one-of-a-kind, multi-color vinyl pattern designed and pressed by New Fumes.  He estimates the vast majority of copies will sell on the web, far more than Wayne indicated. “Only like 500 of the 2000 copies will be at the 3 shows. So, that’s 1500 plus the ones that don’t sell at the shows. Available on line. Be quick.”

New Fumes designed most of the initial 500 pressings for sale at the Halloween Blood Baths to look like bloody or wounded flesh, impressionistically speaking.  He describes this one for example as “a wound you might get if you were running with a fillet knife and tripped on your shoe laces, or something.”

The two bands are also featured together in the new issue of NME, and on October 28th the Lips shared a performance clip for “Elephant” – a video edit of the EP track with a minute of the guitar solo sliced out.  Watch below, followed by excerpts from the NME article (click on the image, then click again, for a larger view).  Scroll down further to the original article for the EP’s tracklist and details on its recording.  The bottom of this page is last week’s update documenting New Fume’s process making the vinyl, and revealing the packaging (cover, inside artwork, and back flap credits).

ORIGINAL POST

Tame Impala returned to the United States at the end of September kicking off their tour with five northeast concerts alongside The Flaming Lips. Their tour winds down in California as they rejoin The Flaming Lips for three special shows – “Halloween Blood Baths.”  Their dates together – billed as the “Peace and Paranoia” tour – will also see the release of a new split EP:
“Doing a Tame Impala does Flaming Lips songs and Flaming Lips do Tame Impala songs 4 song vinyl,” Wayne Coyne announced in September on Instagram with the photo to the right:

Yep, a lyric sheet for Innerspeaker’s epic jam “Runway, Houses, City, Clouds” handwritten by Coyne.  The Lips also recorded Tame Impala’s hit single “Elephant” that week. Watch below as Steven lays down bass, keyboards and guitar (with the “funny cat” effect characteristic of Embryonic):

Contrary to the impression created by this video, Steven isn’t the only Lip on the recording, Wayne updated his Instagram followers on September 25th that Lips touring member (and Spaceface frontman) Jake Ingalls was “doin a cool guitar track for Tame Impala does Flaming Lips/Flaming Lips do Tame Impala vinyl!! @spacefacemusic gonna be coooool!!”

Likewise Jake posted a photo of himself with Michael Ivins to Facebook on September 24th, and the following afternoon added, “Ahh… Covering Tame Impala last night, watching Steven Drozd record drums today.. My job rules.”

The EP isn’t a complete surprise.  Tame Impala hinted a project with the Lips was in the works when they debuted “Silver Trembling Hands” in Dublin on August 21st then“Are You A Hypnotist?” two days later at Rock en Seine (watch these performances, plus read more about the history between the two bands here).  The tracklist has been confirmed as follows:

Side A – Flaming Lips do Tame Impala
1. Runway, Houses, City, Clouds
2. Elephant

Side B – Tame Impala do Flaming Lips
3. Are You a Hypnotist?
4. Silver Trembling Hands

“We both really liked each other’s music and thought it would be fun to do that,” Coyne explained to Rolling Stone.  “Every time I’d seem [Tame Impala] up until last week they were tripping on acid.”  Wayne added to Stereogum, “I knew in the same way that we work, if I said, ‘Look, do you want to do a record together if we do a couple of your songs and you could do a couple of our songs?’ It’s Kevin, but I knew if they said yes, that they could do it because they can. A lot of people you talk to say, ‘Yes, but I’m not the one that decides those sorts of things,’ or, ‘I don’t know.’ But I knew with them, we talked about doing some shows together and made that happen. And then I said we should do a record together and we immediately started to get that happening. So I knew with them that we probably would without some unforeseen disaster happening that they would do it, and it would be good, and everybody could just get on with it. And so I don’t know if it would work that way with all groups, but I knew with them it would.”

Despite Coyne posting the EP will be “only available at the shows” – referring to the two bands’ California “Blood Baths” together circa Halloween – it will also sell on the band’s website.   As with past Lips EPs, the vinyl will be special multi-color designs – no two copies the same – but this time they’ll take a blood theme. Daniel Huffman (aka New Fumes) is pouring the vinyl and has shared these bloody photos from the process:

UPDATE – October 22nd
In addition to more photos of the multi-color vinyl, New Fumes has shared the packaging – including the inside flap, back credits and cover (which he describes as “@oliverhibert vs @wayneflaminglip & @delocreative cover art!“).  He also clarifies that “they will be available at the Lips/Tame Impala west coast shows….you’ll have a chance to buy one on line soon.”  Likewise Wayne notes, “will have them in LA, SF and San Bern!!!! And online sooooooon!!!”