Following up their 2010 take on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, the Flaming Lips have spearheaded a song-for-song cover version of King Crimson's classic 1969 debut In the Court of the Crimson King, The Guardian reports.
The new cover album, titled Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn, is streaming online now, and like the Floyd project was put together by the Lips and a handful of likeminded artists: New Fumes, Linear Downfall, Spaceface and Stardeath and White Dwarfs, a group fronted by Coyne's nephew Dennis Coyne.
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"I guess it’s just one of those random cool Wayne ideas," Chance Anthony Cook, guitarist for Linear Downfall, told Lips fansite the Future Heart in September. "It was very inspiring being there and the energy was crazy . . . we could hear the squirrels chewing on the wires in the ceiling."
Linear Downfall kicked off the project after Coyne caught them at Nashville dive Springwater over the summer and invited them to record at the Lips' Pink Floor studio in Oklahoma. Once there, Coyne told them to record "21st Century Schizoid Man"; next Stardeath and White Dwarfs came to record the title track alongside the Flaming Lips, after which, Coyne told Uncut Magazine, "I thought, there's only five songs on the album, maybe we'll just fill in the gaps and release it."
A limited vinyl edition of Playing Hide and Seek was released at the end of October, and is available only at a handful of independent record shops. The songs are expected to be available for purchase online soon.
Future Heart also said that the Lips plan on continuing their covers project. Suggested records include the Who's Tommy, Can's Tago Mago and the Grateful Dead's Anthem of the Sun. The Lips are also putting the finishing touches on their 15th studio LP, The Terror.
