The Current

Great Music Lives Here ®
Listener-Supported Music
Donate Now
Local Current Blog

Bon Iver’s Flaming Lips collaboration ‘Ashes in the Air’ debuts

by Andrea Swensson

March 27, 2012

One of the more buzzed-about releases for this year's Record Store Day is the new Flaming Lips full-length, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, which will feature numerous collaborations with artists like Erykah Badu, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Ke$ha. Today, the Lips track featuring Bon Iver has surfaced, along with a photo of the song's lyrics, and you can listen and read along in the video below.

First thoughts? Listening to "Ashes in the Air" feels tedious; as a fan of both the Flaming Lips and Bon Iver, I thought the collaboration would result in a workable melody or at least some delightfully strange lyrics. Instead, it seems to drone along for about six minutes and then abruptly come to an end. I'm not really looking forward to listening to it again, but I will.

Clean Water Land & Legacy Amendment
This activity is made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment’s Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.