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The Flaming Lips have announced their intention to release a substantially remastered and expanded edition of their 2006 album, At War With The Mystics, in commemoration of the record's twentieth anniversary. The six-disc compilation is scheduled to arrive on 13 November through Rhino and Warner Records, significantly expanding upon the original release with an extensive array of supplementary material assembled from two decades of archival recordings and unreleased sessions.

At War With The Mystics stands as the band's eleventh studio album, released at a point when the group's creative reach had become particularly expansive, building on the extraordinary reception that had greeted their earlier landmark release Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. The original album demonstrated the band's continued willingness to venture into unconventional musical territory, marrying psychedelic, electronic and orchestral elements within its compositions. The record achieved significant recognition through Grammy honours, winning accolades for instrumental performance and engineering achievement, whilst drawing a nomination for best alternative album category.

The newly compiled edition incorporates nineteen previously unheard demo recordings and fourteen unreleased studio compositions, alongside forty-two tracks that did not feature on the original album proper. Additional contents encompass B-sides and alternate versions of existing material, alongside music specifically composed for film, television and documentary projects, together with recordings that appeared exclusively within soundtrack collections and specialist releases. Two archival concert performances—U.F.O.s At The Zoo and Live At The Hollywood Bowl—have been restored to circulation and appear on compact disc for the first time. The complete set of material will subsequently be made available in vinyl format.

This undertaking represents the latest in a series of catalogue reissues mounted by The Flaming Lips, following their previous expansion of the 2002 album Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. The band, led by frontman Wayne Coyne, has remained active despite occasional disruptions; Coyne underwent hospitalisation earlier in 2026 owing to pneumonia, necessitating the cancellation of a single performance, though their subsequent summer tour dates—which included supporting duties for Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds—proceeded as scheduled. The first glimpse of unreleased material from the project arrives today in the form of a previously unheard demo version of The Sound Of Failure.

Where outlets differ

Source 2 emphasises the album's Grammy achievements (Best Rock Instrumental Performance, Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical nomination for Best Alternative Album), whilst Source 1 makes no mention of these accolades

Source 2 provides specific quantification of unreleased content (19 demos, 14 studio recordings, 42 non-album tracks) whereas Source 1 discusses content categories more generally without numerical precision

Source 2 identifies the album as the band's eleventh studio album and references their most recent release American Head (2020), information absent from Source 1

Source 2 includes details of Wayne Coyne's hospitalisation with pneumonia and the cancellation of one performance, a development not mentioned in Source 1

Source 1 provides extensive track-by-track listing detail, whilst Source 2 focuses more on the broader scope and significance of the reissue

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