Electric Picnic headliners The Flaming Lips have confirmed that their new album, due in the late summer, will be a double.
Talking to Billboard magazine in the States, Wayne Coyne explains: “Somewhere along the way it occurred to me that we should do a double album. Just this idea that you can kind of weave a couple of themes into there and you can sort of sprawl a little bit. Our past couple of records we've always had this little dilemma, like how many songs do you put on? How many instruments do you put on? What's the focus?
"And some of my favorite records – I’m thinking The Beatles’ White Album, Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti and even some of the longer things that The Clash have done – part of the reason I like them is that they're not focused. They're kind of like a free-for-all and go everywhere. It's not necessarily because we're prolific, I think we always stay in a sort of perpetual panic of like we never have more songs than we need and we always wonder if any of them are any good to begin with. I do think we probably work best in a panic, so maybe it's best that I planned it this way."
Tracks mooted for the as-yet-untitled opus include ‘Convinced Of The Hex’, which is described as “Joy Division meets The Miles Davis Group” and Coyne’s ‘response’ to John Lennon’s ‘Instant Karma’, ‘I Don’t Understand Karma.’
Meanwhile, their fellow Stradbally Hall visitors Orbital have a “favourites, remixes, live versions and new mixes” album out on June 5 through Rhino. Titled Orbital 20 – the brothers Hartnoll commenced their technoboffin exploits in ’89 – its 21 tracks including a cracking Tom Middleton ‘re-model’ of ‘Halycon’.