Zaireeka is the eighth studio album by American rock band The Flaming Lips, released on October 28, 1997 by Warner Bros. Records. The album consists of four CDs designed so that when played simultaneously on four separate audio systems, they would produce a harmonic or juxtaposed sound; the discs could also be played in different combinations, omitting one, two or three discs. Each of its eight songs consists of four stereo tracks, one from each CD. The album's title is a portmanteau of two words: Zaire, chosen as a symbol of anarchy after Wayne Coyne heard a radio news story about the political instability of the African nation, and Eureka (literally: "I have found it"), an expression of joyous discovery. Zaireeka was the first album by the band since the departure of guitarist Ronald Jones. It acted as a preview of the music and style that would surface on the next album The Soft Bulletin (1999), which was recorded during the same sessions as Zaireeka, and is the predecessor to the band's more conventional surround sound releases. Background Adverse circumstances led to the production of Zaireeka. The departure of guitarist Ronald Jones compelled the band to change fundamentally. In addition, the limited success of the previous album, Clouds Taste Metallic, threatened their status at Warner Bros. Records. They eventually found that drummer Steven Drozd could compensate for the loss of Jones by becoming a multi-instrumentalist. However, live shows proved to be more challenging and in order to maintain activity and output, Wayne Coyne conceived an experimental show. The Parking Lot Experiments During 1996 and 1997, The Flaming Lips ran a series of events known as "The Parking Lot Experiments". The concept was inspired by an incident in Coyne's youth, where he noticed that car radios in the parking lot at a concert were playing the same songs at the same time, Wayne Coyne created 40 cassette tapes to be played in synchronization. The band invited people to bring their cars to parking lots, where they would be given one of the tapes and then instructed when to start them. The music was "a strange, fluid 20 minute sound composition". Production Production of the album was preceded by two unfortunate events, which were recounted in "The Spiderbite Song" from The Soft Bulletin. Michael Ivins was involved in a car crash, and Steven Drozd's hand became severely infected. Drozd initially claimed that