Ever prolific, The Flaming Lips will be busy the next few months putting out two new EPs. For the first project, the Flaming Lips and Tame Impala will be covering each other songs. The two bands will be on tour together in California starting next month, and according to The Future Heart, they will be selling a vinyl EP of the covers "Runway, Houses, City, Clouds" and "Elephant" by Tame Impala (covered by The Flaming Lips) and "Are You a Hypnotist" and "Silver Trembling Hands" by The Flaming Lips (covered by Tame Impala).
The show dates are Oct. 29 in Los Angeles at the Greek Theatre, Oct. 31 in San Francisco at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and Nov. 1 in Santa Barbara at Santa Barbara Bowl.
The second EP the band is working on is called Peace Sword, the first big release from the group since April's Terror. Right up the Flaming Lip's ally, the album is a sci-fi concept album inspired by the forthcoming film, Ender's Game, which comes out Nov. 1.
According to The Future Heart, the EP will feature six new songs, including "Think Like a Machine, Not A Boy," "Wolf Children," and "Assassin Beetle/The Dream Is Ending." The EP is mostly separate from the film, they reported. This is important to note because there has been some controversy surrounding Ender's Game creator Orson Scott Card, who made anti-gay remarks about same-sex marriage.
Wayne Coyne addressed this issue on his new Instagram page (his original account was deleted because of nudity), where he had been previewing psychedelic album art for the EP. "Well... Our involvement is only with the music directors of the movie," he wrote. "...but yeah ...these are conflicts all big projects have to deal with. We try to do cool things with cool people that, obviously benefit us and the cool people we doing stuff with...occasionally these benefits extend to abstractly connected people who are NOT so cool.. So we try to choose .."
The Future Heart reported that to protest Card, the vinyl etching for the EP will say, "Hey Orson Scott Card You Are Wrong" on one side and "Gay People are Cool" on the other.
The EP is scheduled to drop on Black Friday, Nov. 29. Check out the Flaming Lips covering Tame Impala's "Elephant" here, and let us know what you think in the comments section below!
