The Flaming Lips have released a video for their new single Will You Return / When You Come Down.
It’s the latest material taken from the band’s forthcoming album American Head, which will launch on September 11 through Bella Union in the UK and Europe, and Warner Records in the US.
The Flaming Lips previously released Flowers Of Neptune 6, My Religion Is You and Dinosaurs On The Mountain from the follow-up to 2019’s King’s Mouth.
The video for album opener Will You Return / When You Come Down was co-directed by The Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne and George Salisbury from Delo Creative.
Coyne previously published a long-form story about the album and the inspirations behind it.
He said: “Even though The Flaming Lips are from Oklahoma we never thought of ourselves as an American band. I know growing up in Oklahoma I was never influenced by, or was very aware of any musicians from Oklahoma. We mostly listened to the Beatles and my mother loved Tom Jones. It wasn’t until I was about 10 or 11 that my older brothers would know a few of the local musician dudes.
“So for most of our musical life we’ve thought of ourselves as coming from Earth – not really caring where we were actually from. So for the first time in our musical life we began to think of ourselves as an American band, telling ourselves it would be our identity for our next creative adventure.
“We had become a seven-piece ensemble and were beginning to feel more and more of a kinship with groups that have a lot of members in them. We started to think of classic American bands like The Grateful Dead and Parliament-Funkadelic and how maybe we could embrace this new vibe.
“The music and songs that make up American Head are based in a feeling – a feeling that, I think, can only be expressed through music and songs. We were, while creating it, trying to not hear it as sounds, but to feel it. Mother’s sacrifice, father’s intensity, brother’s insanity, sister’s rebellion... I can’t quite put it into words.”
Coyne concluded: “Something switches and others – your brothers and sisters and mother and father... your pets – start to become more important to you. In the beginning there is only you and your desires are all that you can care about, but something switches. I think all of these songs are about this little switch.”
American Head is now available to pre-order, with a multi-coloured splattered vinyl also available.
The Flaming Lips: American Head
1. Will You Return / When You Come Down
2. Watching the Lightbugs Glow
3. Flowers Of Neptune 6
4. Dinosaurs On The Mountain
5. At The Movies On Quaaludes
6. Mother I've Taken LSD
7. Brother Eye
8. You n Me Sellin' Weed
9. Mother Please Don't Be Sad
10. When We Die When We're High
11. Assassins of Youth
12. God and the Policeman (Feat. Kacey Musgraves)
13. My Religion Is You
