Strobo Trip (EP)

In 2011, The Flaming Lips contract went up. So every month for the following year, they’d release new material, this time self-published and without Warner Bros. Records.

Strobo Trip is a toy and an EP composed of three tracks. The toy combines a strobe light and 24 different discs designed by David Bizzaro, Michelle Martin-Coyne, George Salisbury, Daniel Huffman, and Dylan Bradaway.

When the toy rotates, it creates the illusion of moving images, similar to that of a cartoon. Most of these discs are just shapes moving to a psychedelic effect, but one of them includes drawings of a sperm fertilizing an egg.
Here’s the toy in action

The Box Set was only available at select locations, where Wayne Coyne himself would sell the toy to the customer. The boxes were later sold at different record stores in Oklahoma and finally at a Flaming Lips live show.

The first track, “Butterfly, How Long It Takes to Die” was later remixed and re-released on their next proper album, The Terror..

The second track, I Found a Star on the Ground, is a 6 hour experimental piece that was recorded over 3 weeks. If you donated $100 to two causes by The Flaming Lips (the Central Oklahoma Humane Society and the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma) within that time, you would be given a shout out somewhere in the track as recited by son of former Beatles member, Sean Lennon.