King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity

Fuck this is good

gonna guess no

it iz it izz

https://vimeo.com/157973501

Guess again
Xpost

I liked Papier Mache Dream Balloon (or w/e it was called) well enough

normally don't trust much from this city, but they're mostly good.

It might be good. I don't regret looking at this thread.

Paper Mache Dream Balloon sounds like 90s Of Montreal, and I love it. Don't understand the drastic change in sound. They want to sound tougher I guess.

Wasn't PMDB the stylistic diversion?

New one is maybe my 2nd favorite album of the year after Black Star.

Spotify really wants me to listen to this

You should, it rules.

Turned up in Pitchfork's overlooked music list about a week ago:

http://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/9910-overlooked-albums-2016/

Wasn't PMDB the stylistic diversion?

yes. nonagon infinity just doubles down on the fidgety, high-energy, garage punk that's their primary through-line so far. one of my 2016 favorites, and i'm surprised it hasn't caught on with fans of tongue-in-cheek prog oddity.

yeah this is great. never listened to any of their other albums

finally listening to this, great! they really got psychedelic ants in their pants

based on this i feel like they'd be really fun live

yeah def seem "high energy"

global have you heard General Baby (local band), has a bit of this vibe but more lo-fi zappa

(it's from that whole larry wish & his guys house show axis that i don't really fully understand)

never heard of em!

General Baby don't even have a web presence, really

oops i guess they used to be fortified five that's why it's hard to find

https://fortifiedfive.bandcamp.com/album/a-brief-demonstration-on-baby-talkin

Ilx doesn't love the gizzards and that's a fact.the last album is very good though.

most recent one (polygondwanaland) is super-proggy and totally rules. these aussie freaks own 2017 imho

this is one of the best bands going rn

I like them

especially their microtonal/weird tuning stuff, a lot of stuff on that Banana record sounds great.

not so keen on the new one with narration, it seems extraneous

Yeah i meant polygondwa above as their best record of the year. I wish they werent as repetitive melody wise though. Like back in the Fill Your Lungs days..

they seem like they're excellent live too- the main guy definitely borrows some john dwyer moves tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGHgpVU3UuU

https://youtu.be/_Eg3OUQPayk

Gold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDnOJkrRv3g

Who can report on the new one ?

bit of a psychedelic soul vibe. mellower stuff, a la paper mache dream balloon and sketches of brunswick east

Sounds like mediocre b-sides for all previous 4, except for one surprising and great doom metal/Uncle Acid style song (Great Chain Of Being)

"muddy water" sounds like a victory lap

"barefoot desert" is dope. 1 year, 64 songs. damn!

destroying all that will keep us heading for a meta-thesis

\m/

chill band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENCswmcSALI

I only need to see nardwuar once every 5 years or so but that is good servietting

Friend last night: "have you heard ... they're called like ... Daniel Strudel and the Noodle Doodle?"

Omg actual lol

ILM don't care about Gizzard and you may be right at this point.Used to be great though.

ok i listened to the latest i was erm not expecting straight 86 speed metally thrash. Its not terrible i guess.

It made me think of HNIA’s different smart-ass visitation to metalfrom 2016, which was like, sunshine prog-metal(?). HNIA’s album was actually much more interesting imo.

lot of young aussie bro's really really like these dudes (and possibly drugs??)

because i'm slightly interested in what they're on about, repeated listens haven't been bad, also the guit style is more thrash than beedleybeedleybeedlebeedely. i guess ecoconscious thrash shit is closer fit for olds who are more garage or postpunk maybe. 'i have gone insane-o i lust for volcano pee with molten lava give me my nirvana' and 'auto-cremate! self-immolate!'

Taking my son to see them in a few weeks, he's a big fan. Trying to get caught up on their endless catalog. They seem like great musicians, very creative and intense, but the sheer repetition of their approach wears me down.

Which ones should I listen to if I want to hear them mix it up more? So far I've liked Flying Microtonal Banana the most, but I've barely scratched the surface.

nonagon infinity is the most accessible to early olds imo, it's relentless and stirring.

i love the first one that was my intro, which is very psych- can't remember the name, it has Head On/Pill?

I'm in Your Mindfuzz is pretty strong imo.

I was meh on Fishing For Fishies which is working that sound conceit so hard, or maybe not the sound I wanted. The recent is really fun, but it's way chewing gummy to me. Still the more I listen, there more I am charmed by it.

I can't remember Polygondwanaland, so...

I was half-hoping the new one would be even more thrashy, which is kind of a funny thing — they're constantly churning out so many records in so many different veins that you wind up with a fairly loose attachment to any of them sounding particularly Gizzardy. Or maybe it's just the nature of thrash that once you blend a little of it into what you're doing, it starts feeling like you might as well thrash all the way; it's kind of an extremist genre!

At some point they should release a detailed guide to their working methods, like a productivity self-help book for rock musicians. At this point I'm just curious how they divide up their time.

Minimize chord progressions, tempo changes, syncopation, and vocal melodies seems to be part of it, at least for the straightforward rock LPs.

gonna guess no

― some men just want to watch the world Bern (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, May 4, 2016 5:06 PM (three years ago)

this is definitive

Is it?

gonna guess yes

Infest The Rats' Nest is kind of a wild record. I think I like them in metal mode more than some. This pretty much sounds like old school Metallica meets Sleep.

one of the better metal albums of 2019 so far imo

you could say "it's just kind of a gloss of common metal ideas" to which i would say so is like 80% of metal nowadays

I saw them play in Austin last night, pretty good show. Huge, extremely hyped up crowd. The new songs went over really well, but there was a little too much time spent on the slow jazzy numbers, letting all the band members sing songs, and some endless boogie beats. Needed a bit more of the fast-paced material.

Ooh, I'm liking K.G. so far. A return to the microtonal shit.

Very fun yes, and some enjoyable curveballs as well

K.G. is indeed really good.

The Live In SF LP is great as well

That's next on my list to spin, actually.

First half is all Nonagon all the time, and it ends with a fantastic Head On-Pill that also goes Nonagon when yr least expecting it

What's KG? I loved microtonal banana but never really got this band beyond that.

It's the name of their latest album

it has like a dance track which feels ~weird~, but what, am i gonna tell THIS band how to genre?

Yeah, “Intrasport”, the weird disco track stands out a little, but it segues so nicely into the next song that I can’t hate it.

KG is very Microtonal, it's great

This rules.

LW out Friday, lol

i was into this band for a bit but haven't kept up with them at all, and now i see them being used on social media (even tiktok) as shorthand for annoying arcane prog rock dorks in the same way as tool, so i guess they've hit the big time

they're still great, love both kg & lw - strong albums both!

with the massive volume of albums they've put out, there are absolutely some duds, but there are so many good ones as well. If LW continues with the direction of KG, them I'm totally down.

Not a massive expert on them but they always strike me as great fun - certainly moreso than Tool!

Yeah, there's nothing po-faced abt Gizz, they do not take themselves seriously like that at all.

LW is literally the other half of KG, more excursions on the seas of microtonality. TBH i prefer KGLW to the Flying Microtonal Banana LP that started it all off.

https://kinggizzard.bandcamp.com/album/l-w

yet another record!

A great one, too

I really loved these guys for a minute and then a bunch of stuff happened in my life and I kind of lost track, probably missed 9 albums

I always enjoy them when they're playing, but I can't really be doing with the sheer amount of listening it must take to be a true fan.

Alice bought one of their albums on RSD

I forget which one: I'd look through their discogs list, but I really don't have that kind of spare time...

Forthcoming album Butterfly 3000 is very fun, a new age synth pop record

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDMldn7hFZo pretty cool 18 min jam

is fake vinyl lead-in groove noise the sonic equivalent of fake ring wear on the album cover art?

Saw them live doing a garage rock set recently. Up there as one of my funnest gig experiences and the first time I realised crowd surfing can actually be not terrible (obviously only to a degree, don't crucify me). I drunkenly also started a movement which resulted in 50% of all males at the front taking their shirts off and it was all around an absolutely great time.

All that said, don't have time for their albums. They really are best as a live band

That’s a shame. I love Butterfly 3000

Listened to Mind Fuzz and Butterly 3000 after avoiding them for years due to the name. Goddamit, I'm kind of hooked. The disco-y stuff reminds me of later Tame Impala, but better?

Catching Smoke off the latter is a fun ride.

Of their recent ones, I really enjoyed KG, LW, and Infest The Rats' Nest

I will check those out. They have a million albums!

Rat's Nest is just a fantastic thrash album. The forthcoming LP is brilliant as well, a good place for the neophyte to begin as it draws on lots of different styles, etc, rather than pursuing a single concept.

I got in pretty early, despite the stupid name, with I'm in Your Mind Fuzz. It was a decent garage rock record, but it was hearing the range reflected on Quarters (four 10 minute 10 second psych rock jams) and Paper Mache Dream Balloon (all acoustic instruments, flutes, etc) that convinced me to pay attention. Not every album is great, but they've had far more hits than misses.

I always liked their name. A lizard wizard and a king of digestion, the latter now sounds as fantastic to me as the former

I had a garage-brew milkshake stout named after them, long before I checked out their music and it was amazing the end.

As much as I love Infest The Rats' Nest, I think it would have been improved if the lyrics were unintelligible.

Ha the lyrics having an intelligible uh, spirit (?) makes me like it more somehow.

A pal was at their usa debut at austin psychfest back when, came away awed (and shared head on to me) and i guess the show recording has been released. I should get that🤔.

these guys are making bob pollard look lazy

wow. didn't realize they had another one out today. so difficult to keep up with this band but I dig a lot of it

I wish they would make another garage rock influenced record

...Dripping Tap is one of their best tracks.

(and Ice, Death etc.. is top 5 KG imo)

Dropping Tap remains astonishing - like a rollercoaster fashioned from prog and krautrock. 17 minutes pass in what feels like seconds.

Does this singer have some tourette's tic where every time the chords come to the turnaround, he can't help but let out a falsetto "woooooooh!"? Is there some dude in the band whose only job is to go woooooooh!"?
Listening to "Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, and Lava" this afternoon, I'm really struggling to get past this. It was fun the first time, but come on.

It's his signature move, kind of like Ryu saying "Hadouken"

listening to these guys for the first time, love it - "dripping tap" is the shit

kraut section reminds me of super roots 7 but sub in prog rock tunefulness for tape speed experiments

Signature move indeed

It would be interesting to see what everyone's top 5 KGLW albums are, so many to pick from at this point

I see they're touring. I'm only a casual fan - I know their discography is ridiculous but I've scarcely listened to 1/4 of it - but I'm sure it would be a great show. £40 a ticket though, is that normal these days? Sold out anyway.

lol that's sort of my thinking. I've only heard one or two songs from them, but they've released 100 albums and have earned a grassroots level of legit appreciation, so advantage King Gizzard, I will totally see them. (fwiw, was just visiting family in Australia, and neither my brother in law - nor *his* hipper brother in law - had heard of them.)

I went to the Red Rocks show in November 2022 as "only a casual fan" and left a fully converted Gizzhead after 30 songs and a three-hour marathon set.

One of the best live shows I saw all year.

XP: If they get a giddy mention in a state government press announcement they can't be toooo obscure domestically!

they've played some pretty big venues here in aus but it's a cult following thing where unless you're an active music fan you probably wouldn't know who they are

got a ticket, in the circle, ah well. nevertheless.

having listened to two of the most recent of their five 2022 albums i'm feeling good about my decision (to buy the ticket, would still prefer to be in the stalls).

I'm a pretty big fan of these guys, but didn't expect they'd have a lot of ilm love. I'm really disappointed that they've given up releasing their music on CD and have just fully embraced the multi-pressing, varied color LP thing for every single release, but the 2022 material was pretty good. I'd rank 'em:

Ice, Death, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava (seriously great record that I recommend to the curious, one of their best albums ever imho)
Omnium Gatherum
Laminated Denim
Made in Timeland
Changes

Dumb question about bands like this and lots of other similarly prolific acts. Can they really remember and tell apart all the hundreds of weird songs they've released? I always wondered that about guided by voices; so many songs, so many weird non-sequitor titles, how many could Robert Pollard name? I suppose jazz guys are equally if not more prolific - like, how many albums or songs has Bill Frisell recorded? I bet even he has no idea - but jazz is often about quickly moving forward onto the next thing, not a lot of retrospective stuff. Does a band like this operate similarly? Are there songs fans expect them to play, or do they expect every set to be a semi-improvised psychedelic explosion, with a few nods here and there to current stuff or fan fave stuff?

I've never seen them live, but heard a few live recordings and it seems to be all over the place - some shows are just a grab-bag from all over, they have a number of fan favorites that show up a lot, other focus more on specific modes/genres (the microtonal thing they've done on a few albums, or the heavier rock stuff paired with the material from the thrash record, etc.).

KGLW definitely play specific songs in their live shows including at least a few fan favorites, I don't think the live material is particularly improvised. They obviously have a lot of space for improvised solos, but it all seems fairly planned out in advance.

Can they really remember and tell apart all the hundreds of weird songs they've released?

Stu is insanely sharp, and seems to have a handle on everything Gizzard has done (though he admits he doesn't own all their stuff on vinyl). It helps, I think, that a lot of their stuff is conceptual, in sound if not text: each of the three albums they put out at the end of last year follows its own strict concept, and I interviewed him about them and he had a real clear understanding about each one, how the songs work within that concept, and what they were doing. He's deep into world-building and has an insanely driven work-ethic - he's not just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, everything seems, on some level, to be an intellectual exercise, and he understands what he's doing and what the music is doing. With Pollard, I feel there's a mercenary vibe that's developed in later years (maybe less so than circa GBV's initial split and the avalanche of releases that followed), where he seems to be focused on making PRODUCT, and knowing that there's a faithful audience there that will purchase all his output, even box sets sourced from fan-circulate bootlegs. For Stu, he seems genuinely intellectually engaged with each project Gizz do - there's an infectious sense of joy, and one shared among the other bandmates. It's a bit of a utopian thing, if you can dig it.

Are there songs fans expect them to play, or do they expect every set to be a semi-improvised psychedelic explosion, with a few nods here and there to current stuff or fan fave stuff?

At the Red Rocks show in November 2022, they played 30 distinct songs from their 23 albums. Many had improvisational bits added and/or were extended live versions, but the improvisation was tied to existing studio cuts. A few songs were transitioned into each other seamlessly (unlike on the studio albums). The two prior Red Rocks shows in October had another 55 to 60 unique songs with no overlap between the three setlists — close to 90 songs across three shows and nine hours.

I spoke with a superfan who said that altogether, King Gizzard played about 130 different songs on last year's tour.

This summer's run of three Red Rocks shows in June 2023 is promised to be similar. Three shows with no overlap between the setlists for fans who want to attend all three (... and you can guess how many shows I have tickets for).

I'm really disappointed that they've given up releasing their music on CD

My wallet is torn about this. I have a complete set of King Gizzard studio albums on CD — it was finally easier to keep up last year!

I'm just not into the variant chasing thing and their vinyl is really expensive (although I did finally cave and buy Ice, Death) so I was happy to keep rolling with the CDs. The abandonment was surprising since they'd even gone back a year or two ago to specifically release stuff that wasn't previously on CD, like Quarters.

Hopefully, they'll come back around with CD pressings of the recent albums. I'll certainly pick up copies if they do.

Ice, Death, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava (seriously great record that I recommend to the curious, one of their best albums ever imho)
Omnium Gatherum
Laminated Denim
Made in Timeland
Changes

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, January 17, 2023 11:30 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

interesting, Changes is my fav of their 2022 albums! feels like the most fusiony steely dan-ish of them. Omnium Gatherum prob would've been #1 without the rapping.

I need to give Changes more of a chance I think, it honestly might have been KG exhaustion by the time I got to it when I was powering through the three October albums. Yeah, the rapping was awful and I'm so glad Changes wasn't the "rap" album that some fans were theorizing on based on the cover art.

yeah otm i love all their sounds so far but the dad rap

Omnium Gatherum prob would've been #1 without the rapping.

There was almost a whole rap album. Omnium's my favourite of the bunch, and 'The Dripping Tap' is probably my favourite track of 2022 and maybe the best thing they've ever done? 'Gaia''s also their best full-on metal number yet. But all those records are great.

So there was some basis to those rumors/theories... er, uh, not looking forward to that one.

"The Dripping Tap" alone is what prompted OG to be my #2 for the year.

Hahaha, I don't think it'll ever see the light of day tbh. Joey said "We were very aware how problematic it was, six white idiot psych-rock guys, making hip-hop…”

Ice, Death, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava (seriously great record that I recommend to the curious, one of their best albums ever imho)

listened to this earlier, never heard this band before but it reminded me so much of Gong that i ended up throwing on the Dashiell Hedayat record.

They definitely are like an Antipodean Gong. Same playfil attitude allied to thrilling muso chops and willingness to go balls-out without a safety net.

not quite sold on this band but i'm onboard with the recurring falsetto wooooh's that enochroot didn't like, it's never quite expected and made me laugh a bunch of times.

yeah, broadly Gong-like in attitude and approach but there are also more direct similarities, at least on that one record.

Can they really remember and tell apart all the hundreds of weird songs they've released? I always wondered that about guided by voices; so many songs, so many weird non-sequitor titles, how many could Robert Pollard name?

well a key difference is they have a ton of stylistic variety compared to guided by voices who pretty much just have one sound so it's probably easier for them

God this band is good live. Yet I never have any desire to listen to their recorded output. Bummed I didn't catch tickets for their upcoming Brisbane show. If you ever get a chance to see the Giz, do not pass it up, even if you hate them.

Yeah I'd love to see them, but the tickets disappear almost instantly around here, since they (understandably) don't tour a ton over here, meaning their shows are "events".

Diving more into Omnium. These guys rule. I even like the rap tracks. So much wit and spirit. I wasn’t sure about em but I’m getting increasing returns.

The most impressive thing about the giz is that with their ridiculous output, they’re never boring.

yeah totally! i mean there are honestly some sections here and there when i am a little ??? but the imagination and engagement is just consistently there & they always bring a smile to my face within a few seconds. some impressive songwriting too that feels very intuitive. as far as the metal goes, it's not like they're technical masters or anything, but the real draw through all their styles for me is the philosophy, outlook and spirit behind it. like "gaia" as a subject, that's hippie shit, but they kind of go off the deep end a little bit, i.e. it's hippie stuff that gets it right and drops the self-importance and is more often than not an arresting song, like the byrds' "5d" or something.

it's perfect stoner music for the times and makes me have some faith in people since they're apparently kinda huge now among a certain type? i also just love that they deliver a concentrated version of the feeling of being younger and having a bunch of music freaks for friends and just like eating it all whole.

i'm also enjoying that they're not afraid of some things that might come across as kinda cheesy, it's all in the service of their whole vibe. also when they bring out eclectic instruments, even when they're obviously not masters of the instrument or anything, the imagination delivers and, like you said h p, it's never boring.

otm to everything. They really capture some of the best parts of Australian youth culture: wide optimism towards everything, the willingness to have "FUN" at the expense of status. Re: the hippie stuff, I think it's because Giz is so broad in their style that whichever style they pick loses the corniness as it is more of an exercise of "let's pull out all the fun/good from this particular style" and less of a "lets take conceptual metal albums or hippie gaia musing as some narrow road to the truth" that can inadvertently come out of bands where such a style is a sole focus.

and yeah, they are huge over here. It's a surprise to meet anyone under 30 who doesn't at least know of the giz. And I mean anyone, yuppies, beachies, do-nothing'ies, churchies, skate'ies, gamer....'ies, etc. etc. And even if the band is not for said people, there's still a sense of respect given (work-ethic and diversity, we suck at it so we respect it when we see it).

oh that's interesting to hear about their audience in australia.

i see them doing all of these big venues here in the states in the summer, red rocks and all that - with multi-day engagements, matinee shows, that kind of thing. it seems to me that they're the perfect "college music fan" band of the 2020s, i think of the crowd i was with in the early 2000s that were into flaming lips and jam bands and indie rock and jazz and stuff.

everyone otm and I need to listen to them more, they are very big with the kids at the college station I DJ at

I’m getting increasing returns.

This is absolutely them, for me. The more I listen, the more I love it. The more of it there is, the more I admire them. It helps that my 8yo is currently OBSESSED and plays them non-stop at the moment.

Re: Gaia, I think that's their best "metal" song yet. I think it was Rat's Nest that made me realise how genius this band was - that they could play such a breadth of music, but also demonstrate such a depth of understanding, or at very least sincere enthusiasm, in all that music at the same time. They played thrash so well, so enjoyably. But Gaia is something else - the way the riffs ride over the switching grooves, the sliding sections of it, the sheer heaviness and darkness of it.

Their embrace of climate politics is 100% sincere, by the way. I don't doubt Stu believes Gaia theory and is probably on the planet's side tbh.

yep I agree with map, idk if this band is gonna be my thing (I like what I've heard though) but either way it's super cool they're as big as they are. They really do seem to be having fun with what they're doing and I love how they seem to just let anyone who wants to press their records. For a band as strange as they are sometimes they seem to be fairly well known. I've heard them brought up in conversation a lot lately and my local shop has a bunch of posters for them up.

Their embrace of climate politics is 100% sincere, by the way. I don't doubt Stu believes Gaia theory and is probably on the planet's side tbh.

oh absolutely, you can hear it! i didn't mean to sound dismissive of it by calling it hippie shit - that is really nice to hear atm and i think it's part of what makes them so appealing. "gaia" also dives into a kind of cosmology that i also basically agree with. there is an embrace of death in a lot of their lyrics / subjects that feels like the opposite of nihilism to me.

my other fav on omnium right now is "evilest man." the subject matter of "conservative media" is like .. proceed with caution for me, lol, not something i necessarily want to hear a song about, you know? but i'm all in when it gets to this section:

I wonder if he knows this song
Probably read before it was done
He probably hacked my phone
I'll change the locks when I get home

and after the last line it just blasts off into one of their psych guitar explosions - like it's such a gratifying affirmation of interior personal space in the face of some hall of mirrors nightmare land.

i got ice, death..., laminated denim and changes based on jon via chi's list. he is otm about ice, death..., what a great album, just deep psychedelic rock goodness that goes further into their earth-based cosmology. that first track is so unbelievably euphoric. laminated denim burns bright too, two 15 min tracks with some ashra / can shenanigans going on. haven't connected as strongly to changes yet but think it's likely i will.

pastiche distillation music

With Pollard, I feel there's a mercenary vibe that's developed in later years (maybe less so than circa GBV's initial split and the avalanche of releases that followed), where he seems to be focused on making PRODUCT, and knowing that there's a faithful audience there that will purchase all his output, even box sets sourced from fan-circulate bootlegs. For Stu, he seems genuinely intellectually engaged with each project Gizz do - there's an infectious sense of joy, and one shared among the other bandmates. It's a bit of a utopian thing, if you can dig it.

― his cartoon heart expands, then he relaxes by smoking crack (stevie), Tuesday, January 17, 2023 11:18 AM

If they did a collabo with Guided By Voices, I really hope they call it "Doug Gillard and the Lillard Willard"

hahahahahaha!

this is gonna sound like a stretch i'm sure but the band these guys remind me of is neil young & crazy horse, in overall scope and vibe more than a particular set of common sounds, although some of the extended guitar work has a resemblance.

hell's itch: a beautiful song about flaying oneself

the kraut influence sometimes translates as stereolab-gone-prog-rock. the music is good to great but the lyrics are really where it's at for me. in that department they remind me of radiohead a bit when that band was really nailing the zeitgeist in the late 90s. but their lyrics are better. really interesting / probing stuff about bodies and the earth, making really bleak observations sound affirmative, sometimes joyous, sometimes funny, sometimes just weird.

that's an intriguing take! where do I start, which album do u recommend?

Omnium Gatherum is probs the best starting place - eclectic sounds throughout, and the lyrics are smart and strong (Gaia, Evillest Man, Blame It On The Weather)

That was the first one that clicked with me when I was trying to catch up. And then my friend said they reminded him of Ween, and ... yeah, kinda.

would also recommend Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms & Lava as a next stop after OG

yeah, for me, those two are equally as good. As far as their older stuff goes, I still think of Nonagon Infinity as the ultimate KG album, and it maybe leans the hardest into the non-stop motorik vibe. Flying Microtonal Banana is my personal favorite from that period, and I'm In Your Mind Fuzz is a great dirty garage rock jam. I also think Infest The Rats Nest is excellent, but it is a straight up metal album and is pretty far from their core sound.

Second j/v/c's next-step purchase and entirely agree with Moodles' choice of old skool Gizzard LPs. The Live In San Francisco album is great, too - that closing Head On/Pill is such a fabulous jam.

^^ yeah that live album is so good

My two early favorites were Quarters and I'm in Your Mind Fuzz.

I actually sprang for Needlejuice's 9-CD release of their entire 2022 Red Rocks run, as a consolation for not being able to see them on the upcoming tour.

Bought my 8yo I'm In Your Minid Fuzz for Xmas as the first record she owns herself. She's already a massive Gizzhead but that one contains a bunch of her favourites.

Considering taking her to the End Of The Road festival when they play there this summer, but also considering not because I just am not convinced taking an 8yo to a festival isn't a massive headache.

want to give a shout out to laminated denim too. at this point it's up there with omnium and ice death planets for me.

I’m sure there’s a better thread to post this in, but the Gizz is relevant whatever

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=586231203546287&id=100064782364065&mibextid=tejx2t

bluesfest is imploding

Good.

Deserves to implode, imho, after the organizer's absolutely terrible response to Gizz pulling out.

Based on this article, the festival organizer's response seems pretty reasonable.
Do he do something else that was terrible?

It’s possible that Noble’s definition of “extremely apologetic” matches yours, but doesn’t align with other readers here, or some of the musicians on the lineup.

listening to Ice, Planets, etc. now and whoever said they were like a modern Gong is totally otm. was kinda hoping I would *not* like this band because I see their vinyl all over and it looks so cool. but I can't help but notice that everyone who's into this band has excellent taste, so I guess it's fate

"one of us, one of us"

they are just a great band, you probably won't like every single album they put out, but there are some great ones.

Based on this article, the festival organizer's response seems pretty reasonable.
Do he do something else that was terrible?

the general feeling is that sticky fingers never really made amends for their behaviour - after their year-long hiatus they gave a disastrous interview on their return downplaying the incidents as 'boys will be boys' and they've continued to get into trouble - two of them got into legal trouble after having a drunken fight in 2021 for instance, so people are right to be sceptical about claims that they've reformed and that frost especially has gotten his issues under control

Well the guy behind the festival released an initial response when KGLW originally dropped out that was super defensive, arrogant and basically taking Sticky Fingers' side. As the backlash gained steam, they backtracked and released a newer statement. Still trying to find the original response...

It's been scrubbed pretty completely, even the two Reddit threads that posted his initial response have had the original posts nuked.

As is well known, I am and always have been the Director of Bluesfest.

Over the years, Bluesfest has been the promoter of music festivals which allowed diverse artists to exercise their freedom of artistic expression and have afforded the Australian public access to their works.

In the course of doing so, Bluesfest has been proud to give prominence to indigenous artists and to promote diversity in the music industry.

Recently, a band decided to cancel a forthcoming appearance at Bluesfest because Sticky Fingers, particularly its lead singer (who are booked to play at Bluesfest), was involved in an incident with another artist offstage a long time ago.

There has already been a lot of social media traffic about this decision. I think one commentator well reflects my feelings, as previously stated:

“That whole situation happened 7 years ago and the lead singer of Sticky Fingers has been extremely apologetic and open about his bipolar schizophrenia and substance abuse during that time and is also Māori. They’ve done the work to try and make amends and took a long hiatus to fix things.”

I believe an attempt to victimise this man and his band in the circumstances is cruel and unforgiving. This cruelty and lack of compassion are foreign to my values, as is the attempt to suppress the band’s artistic expression. I was and remain proud to give the band a chance at rehabilitation.

Bluesfest hopes that the public will understand, respect, and hopefully, on reflection, agree with the position my company and I have taken. Forgiveness is critical to helping people with mental health challenges continue functioning in society.

It has been suggested that because of the listing of Sticky Fingers, Bluesfest and I endorsed the lead singer’s ancient troubled behaviour. That suggestion is deplorable, untrue, and actionable as being defamatory.

That one?

I have no clue what he's done but this sentence makes it sound real bad

That whole situation happened 7 years ago and the lead singer of Sticky Fingers has been extremely apologetic and open about his bipolar schizophrenia and substance abuse during that time and is also Māori.

yeah, that one, thanks.

the official Bluesfest PR that was published as a screenshot so you could see the crybaby paragraph c+p'd from the band's management was pretty good too

https://themusic.com.au/features/what-did-sticky-fingers-do-to-be-cancelled/R_BTW1pdXF8/25-02-23

this is a detailed summary if you're interested in reading far too much about sticky fingers' history

putting all the mess to the side for a moment, sticky fingers make horrible music and I was glad not to hear it playing in public the past 5 or so years

i thought 'king gizzard & the lizard wizard' was a not-great band name at first (it has grown on me tbh), but 'sticky fingers' is just abysmal. like naming your band 'rubber soul'.

from a Marrickville bowling club

wonder which one, Staff Writer

'sticky fingers' is just abysmal. like naming your band 'rubber soul'.

with the additional wrinkle that "sticky fingers" is gross and double-entendre-y

I have finally reached the point of my life which I mocked all others Australian Gizz fans for for. Giz has become influential in me finally wanting to buy a massive 100 watt orange amp+cab duo and just smash out some garage rock (rock, in my garage). God damn their early stuff is so much fun to churn out loud in your shed. There is something about this band that makes you feel like "hell yeah, lets do what they're doing". Not for art, not for music, not for fame, but simply for fun. The Giz know how to have a good time.

Would like to reiterate as well, very very very very very fun and great live band

Based on the name alone, I will never voluntarily listen to this band.

I hate the name too, have heard in the background since my kids listen to them, but didn’t make an impression on me either way.

Based on the name alone, I will never voluntarily listen to this band.

Absolutely your loss.

That spinoff or whatever it is of theirs, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, is even worse!

Are they a spinoff? They don't share any members and Perth is 2000+ miles away from Melbourne!

Never investigated directly -- that name gave me the hives -- but the PR over here were hyping up some kind of connection. Wouldn't be surprised if it was hot air!

their name is obviously stupid and would be fitting for some half-serious spinoff band but I do think the fact that they have such a ridiculous amount of output makes it kinda funny now. plus you know they came up with it when they were like 18.

I have finally reached the point of my life which I mocked all others Australian Gizz fans for for. Giz has become influential in me finally wanting to buy a massive 100 watt orange amp+cab duo and just smash out some garage rock (rock, in my garage). God damn their early stuff is so much fun to churn out loud in your shed. There is something about this band that makes you feel like "hell yeah, lets do what they're doing". Not for art, not for music, not for fame, but simply for fun. The Giz know how to have a good time.

lol because while it's not playing it myself, i experienced the need for appropriate gear for these guys: i blew out a bluetooth speaker a few months ago blasting the gizz! i had not previously approached playing the type of music capable of doing that at the volume capable of doing that since i was a kid. (only other time i can remember blowing out a speaker was playing License to Ill on an old school boombox. those were good times...)

it's like that denis leary joke, "pot is a gateway drug, but it doesn't lead to more drugs, it leads to carpentry"

seems like the connection is just some vague idea of an australian psych rock scene

Yeah Murlocs is the KGLW spinoff band, I don't think they have anything to do with PPC (whom I've never heard), other than both playing psych rock in Australia.

there's a local bar here which does a "prog night" every month and I love how you have one generation of people there who grew up through the 60's and 70's and will talk about what it was like to buy The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway the day it was released and then another generation of young people who know every King Gizzard record which led them to Yes and Soft Machine and all that

The youth yearns the rock. Re: the name, definitely your loss. Obviously first reaction is “why”, but I think it’s a great name for them insofar as it directly communicates playful fun and the complete absence of all pretension.

I feel like I’m reaching a little here. It is a dumb and probably regretful name lol. But who cares?

With Pollard, I feel there's a mercenary vibe that's developed in later years (maybe less so than circa GBV's initial split and the avalanche of releases that followed), where he seems to be focused on making PRODUCT, and knowing that there's a faithful audience there that will purchase all his output, even box sets sourced from fan-circulate bootlegs. For Stu, he seems genuinely intellectually engaged with each project Gizz do - there's an infectious sense of joy, and one shared among the other bandmates. It's a bit of a utopian thing, if you can dig it.

― his cartoon heart expands, then he relaxes by smoking crack (stevie), Tuesday, January 17, 2023 11:18 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think it's worth noting that, when GBV had been a band for 13 years as KLGW has, they were releasing Under the Bushes Under the Stars. Let's reconvene in 30 years and see how fresh KLGW is then.

I think it’s a great name for them insofar as it directly communicates playful fun and the complete absence of all pretension.

i understand that this sounds a little foolish and eye-rolly, but i want to defend the name in the other direction - i think it's actually a serious choice and reflective of their subject matter. gizzard is, well, our digestive tract, and i've never heard a band take on embodiment as a theme like they do - it seems like a bit of a dark cavern for them, maybe the king of it is a bit of an antagonist, like goliath. lizard wizard? yeah it's a silly rhyme but i think it puts over the kind of third eye / magic persona that animates their joyfulness, maybe that's david. anyway.

embodiment and ecology. it's a bit vague / mysterious and the alliteration is maybe unfortunate, but i think it reflects those themes, which seem pretty central to the band (though surely aren't the only ones).

gizzard is, well, our digestive tract, and i've never heard a band take on embodiment as a theme like they do

let us not forget that they once cut a concept album that ends with a cyborg vomiting the universe into extinction

Wait til you hear ausmuteants do an ep all about cops. I love orstalya

never really checked this band out, one of those instances where those Spotify "This Is King Lizard and the Gizzard Wizard" playlist are helpful

i don't have the bandwidth to listen to a lot of new music, and i'm not "serious" about discovery, like i'm a really lazy crow who just latches onto whatever shiny thing that comes their way, so that's where i'm coming from, but with these guys i'm definitely turning into a FAN, as in omg i love them, haven't had that experience happen for a few years at least.

they make Motorpsycho's release schedule look like Peter Gabriel. I can respect that.

i'm only 3 albums into their discography so far! (going backwards). but i've had those on repeat for a while and they keep doing it for me.

i love this one to death. if this doesn't make you smile at some point then this band probably isn't for you imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2akBAjCNVY

I've listened to that album twice and there are so many parts still stuck in my head

four people at work asked me who I was going to see this evening, hadn't heard of them and laughed when I told them. it's a good name.

phenomenal gig. tons of shredding interspersed with motorik electronic, slow jamz, flute rap. started with gaia, then three from nonagon infinity mixed with other songs in a non stop jam, ended (after a bunch of other stuff) with dripping tap. I will, if possible, definitely go and see them again.

Took my daughter to the show last night, her first gig - was able to get us snuck on side of stage as it was a "no under 14s" show and she's 8. Her mind was absolutely blown - we had to leave about 75 minutes in as she was seriously flagging but what a fantastic show - mildly disappointed to have missed The Dripping Tap but they opened with Gaia, my favourite of their thrash jams, and it was mighty. Cavs drummed like a beast throughout, what a superstar.

the nonagon suite was so ace. I sort of feel they could jam on those four or five songs all night if they wanted to, building up to the crescendos and then pulling back and then building up again, and it would have been sublime.

Yeah the drumming was incredible, that minutes-long drum solo in gaia \m/

Stu busting out the flute was unexpected - well by me anyway, maybe not by more devoted fans!

I've just listened to the album version of 'Shanghai', it's a pleasant little ditty. Last night it was a motorik monster.

Ah yes - love the Butterfly 3000 LP, but they totally gave it a krautrock carapace so it could stomp last night!

Still haven’t really listened to this band. Already some younger guys in the neighborhood who told me to listen to them are doubling down and recommending yet another band, one called Babe Rainbow. Which seems to be named after an album by The House of Love, who I never heard of either, but this album seems to be the one that is most my speed.

Okay, back to King Gizzard. Think I will listen to “Gaia” first.

Let me say I'll preface my post here by saying that I 100% understand that trying to survive as a band in 2023 has got to be incredibly difficult and I can't fault any band for doing what it takes to make money and keep doing what they love.

That said, (here comes the "but") I'm increasingly getting a sour taste in my mouth about the way they are turning more and more to releasing physical versions of their albums like they are exclusive sneaker drops - tiny batches, limited by different regions, color variations. etc. Like this tweet from last night to announce a "drop" on Friday:

Friday's repress drop includes - amongst HEAPS of other things...

Murder of the Universe on 2LP for the first time

Willoughby's Beach with original artwork on 12" for first time

Infest the Rat's Nest with alternative "smouldering rodent carcass" artwork (lol)

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

— King Gizzard (@kinggizzard) March 29, 2023

When you get into the replies (also! I do appreciate whomever on their team spends the time patiently wading through twitter replies to answer fans) you see even more about how these are intentionally limited in certain countries or whatever. Out of curiosity, I dug into some threads on the band's subreddit and apparently these things sell out in minutes, if not more quickly. I get it, these dudes are popular! But it's very clear that this is an intentional approach by the band to inflate demand through limited releases.

I think this aspect has always been a part of their approach and probably helped to their appeal among hardcore vinyl nerds. But I'll say that it was also easier to ignore this when they were also releasing their albums on easy to get CD and wider vinyl runs. I didn't get into music to have to chase drops like a madman, I just want to support the artists I enjoy and have a physical copy for my collection. I was happy to wait a little and grab the CD when it came out. But now that they've done away with the CD option completely and are increasingly focusing on limited drops, I can't lie..it's kind of taking the joy away a little bit for me.

They've become my gym/car band via streaming.

aren't they the band that lets any label release their stuff so long as they get a copy? maybe that's live records only. still I think "release as much stuff as possible" is kind of this band's M.O.

I suspect that the market for regular CDs is mostly non-existent, and the only way they sell any physical product is through these ultra exclusive drops.

I understand being bummed about CDs if that's your thing, but I think the limited runs on vinyl is just a reality of being a band releasing their own stuff in a world where any affordable pressing plant is likely to be jammed up with neon vinyl reissues of herb alpert records for RSD. The new albums from last year (save Omnium) are, as far as I can see, largely available in the UK at the moment, but they'll come back into print at some point. The alt pressings are just for the collecter scum fanboys, and I'm sure they partly keep the band rolling. But also, they aren't signed to a label, they release their stuff themselves, so I'm guessing they have to run these things on quite tight budgets.

Like I said in my post, I don't blame them for doing what they need to do to survive. It's more just my observation that the distribution has changed in recent years and what used to be easy to scoop up has gotten pretty hard. The last five albums haven't been released on CD at all and only 3 of those 5, afaict, got wide vinyl releases. It seems like they are still kinda associated with ATO since they are reissuing a few vinyl things this year, but doesn't look like the same distribution deal they used to have.

I honestly think a good solution (getting to frogbs' point) would be to license someone like Needlejuice to press up CDs and get a cut from that. I know Needlejuice has done a really good job with the live physical packages they've put together and I'd be happy to support that too.

At the end of the day, obviously I can stream and that's what I've done with the 2022 albums that I missed on vinyl. I think it's just more that I've been collecting these guys since pretty much their fourth album and it's mildly annoying to just have stopped in 2021, despite them still releasing great new stuff.

To more specifically answer frogbs' point - yeah, they freely license live stuff but I think only one or two specific studio albums so far.

ok I'm stoned to the bone and am listening to the album in the thread title for the first time, which I bought purely on good faith based on the cool people in my life. I tell you what going "okay I'm not that high, this really has been going on longer than 5 minutes" is a fun feeling

hahahahahahaha

i can imagine being stoned and not expecting the same riffs ro reoccur throughout the record would be a fun experience

Jon OTM. (I haven’t heard this band but we clearly share similar frustrations about CD availability in the modern era.)

by the way anyone who digs this should check out "N.O.X." on the Motorpsycho album The All is One, which is a similar blend of motorik and hard psychedelic rock. 40 minues long too. kinda makes me wonder if it would've been hyped up more as a separate album. obviously these guys thought this sort of thing would stand on its own.

Good recommendation frogbs, that's a great tune. Motorpsycho was a great discovery for me during the pandemic. Still have a ton of their catalog to discover, but I've fallen hard for everything I've gotten so far, which is everything starting with Death-Defying Unicorn (also got the Blissard 4xCD reissue thing).

you may wanna go a little back for Heavy Metal Fruit, that's when they really started hitting the prog hard and IMO it's one of their best

Definitely on my list, kinda working my way backwards. I think when the new album comes up for pre-order, I'll grab a handful from Stickman.

I'm listening to one of their live shows from last year and it's way harder/bigger than I expected.

going to see them this summer despite not really having listened to much of their music since nonagon infinity. they seem like they'll be fun live though

New album is called "PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation."

Wish I was going this summer, enjoy. I've heard nothing but amazing things about their live shows.

xpost - yep, and per a discussion from another thread, it's not due out until June 16th, but it is completely sold out in every format already.

Apparently many of the variants sold out in 9 minutes. I love these guys, but jfc the tiny pressings and drops drive me absolutely batshit.

they gotta be the only band around right now that could get away with a title like that

well there's a parallel discussion in the billy woods thread about cult-popular hip hop artists like woods and roc marciano and mach-hommy doing similar things

worth checking out - someone asked woods about it in an interview and he said he was not trying to create artificial scarcity, it's just hard for him to find the sweet spot in terms of how many LPs to produce without losing money

yeah, though I think it's a little different for these guys, I suspect there is a bit of intentionality in what they do, because it works. they have fans salivating for these drops and, every time, they sell out nearly instantly. they don't do typical pre-orders, it's precisely timed drops for different regions with different vinyl variants, it reminds me a lot of the hype and drop cycle for like new sneakers. and it works, as someone pointed out on a reddit thread, 6 variants in runs of 10,000 each @ $40 a pop - the band pulled in over 2 million dollars in just a few hours.

correcting faulty numbers there, it was actually runs of 2,000 each, so they "only" cleared half a million in that time frame. still, imagine most artists would kill for those numbers.

enjoying some gizz at the office, great way to momentarily chase away bad vibes

what gizz did you go for?

definitely reckon the dripping tap would annihilate any badvibes

IDPLML

"mycelium" is low key the most positive song ever recorded

They're playing three sold out shows here. Assuming I can get in, I'm trying to figure out which of the three might be the most strategically appealing for a band with 25 albums that I've never seen live before. First show? Third show?

have they announced any themes for the three shows?

Ooh, I never even thought about that. I did a quick google and I think word is they are not going to repeat any songs over the course of the three nights, so ... roll a dice?

I’m going on the 13th.

they've done metal shows, garage shows, etc, before. they're also REALLY GREAT at pacing and planning their setlists - the show i took my then-8yo to a couple of months ago began with a bunch of their thrash jams, then eased into some Nonagon Infinity stuff, and then slipped into a bunch of Butterfly 3000 stuff, and it all worked together so well.

I'll be there tonight, no idea what to expect. I'll be the one looking old and confused and (checks weather) possibly damp.

My only advice as a fellow old is if it is general admission, be careful about standing in the middle of the crowd. I made that mistake when I saw them and almost got crushed as soon as they started playing.

all metal so far!!!!

now stoner krautrock boogie

now space prog

hope you're having a blast these guys sound like a lot of fun

a little too phishy for me at times, but they are all over the place in a good way

This sounds a lot like the show I saw a few years ago. Started off super heavy but after a while shifted into more of a mellow jam mood that I found less engaging.

it's gone back and forth tonight. two hours straight, thought it'd be longer, maybe because of the rain.

the "stoner krautrock boogie" segment/medley was the peak for me, especially the flute song (maybe not coincidentally, this is also when the rain finally stopped). the metal stuff is fun but feels pastichey imo.

Talked to a dude who flew in from Seattle. This was his 15th show this tour, and he said it was a great set. But I get the feeling they don't really do "bad" sets, just always a hodgepodge of their styles.

My buddy, a recovering Phish guy, was impressed. On one hand, he said, there were moments that reminded him of peak 1995 Phish (I trust him), but he also said there was also lots of other stuff that Phish could never authentically pull off, like the metal or krautrock/psych. Maybe Ween could do that, I dunno, I've never really listened to Ween. (I did see a few Ween shirts, but I also saw a kid wearing a Rites of Spring shirt.)

Anyway, it was fun, not really my scene, so a change of pace.

i saw someone wearing a green velvet cape with a fur collar and a ween logo on the back

I know that before they did the metal albums they were anxious that they wouldn't seem like dilletantes, that it wouldn't seem like pastiche. I know Stu's favourite era of metal is that moment when prog hits thrash - And Justice For All-era Metallica - and I think they make a fine fist of that noise. Certainly Gaia is one of the finest metal songs I've heard in years - that groove, those changes.

I like metal KG, but I'm also definitely a metal dilettante

Ha! Me too tbh...

Sounds like a pretty good show! I have to admit I haven't heard much Phish in their stuff just yet, but I haven't seen them live and haven't caught up with any of the recent recordings. I could see them hitting on some similar jam vibes though.

we couldn't really figure out how much jamming was happening - i'm guessing some of the solos were improvised but there would also be sudden shifts in tempo/rhythm that seemed like they had to be planned, so structurally it didn't seem as jammy

Apparently the band has only recently started exploring the Dead. I found this illustrative interview in (of course) Relix (I corrected the typos, lol):

https://relix.com/articles/detail/king-gizzard-the-lizard-wizard-a-beautiful-mind-fuzz/

During that five-album span, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard also exploded on the live-music circuit, headlining amphitheaters in the U.S. for the first time and aging into the rare torch-receiving act to simultaneously draw in hipster tastemakers, hard-edged metal fans and off-season Phishheads at any given show. It was a long time coming: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have been gradually expanding their own Gizzverse for just over a decade and their rise through the ranks has been singular and organic. In that time, they’ve learned how to make their fans happy—though the group has long staked their claim to one of the more adventurous corners of the jam-scene, recently they have started thinking of themselves as more of a “jamband” than “a band who jams.”

“I didn’t understand the Grateful Dead— they weren’t a cultural phenomenon here like they were in the States,” Mackenzie says, while sitting for a 9 a.m. Zoom at his studio, his two-year-old daughter already awake for the day. “So, early on, when we said we were a jamband, we meant that we had no fucking idea what we were doing. We would just get up there and improvise. The vocabulary wasn’t learned from jambands. But, as soon as we started coming to the States, we noticed that some people would come to every show on the tour. We would always think, ‘I feel so bad for these people. They’re coming to watch the exact same show every night.’ I didn’t realize that they saw this seed of improvisation within our music. I didn’t have access to the cultural understanding of what touring with a band meant. But spending a lot of time in the States opened us up to playing different, unique shows every night and improvising a lot more. And I love that—it makes us feel like we are musicians rather than performers.”

The Gizzard leader says that he will often look back on the group’s past setlists before they return to any given city, in order to offer a unique show. He’s also found himself going down a deep Grateful Dead rabbit hole in recent years.

“As soon as I realized that there were hundreds of versions of the same songs that were all amazing and different, I was like, ‘OK, I get it,’” Mackenzie—who sings and provides guitar, keyboards, flute and a range of other instruments in Gizzard— admits. “When I find a Dead song I like, instead of listening to it over and over again—which is what I do when I find a band that I’m quite obsessive about—I’ll listen to the same song from different years. I said to myself: ‘I understand how this is life for people.’”

I don't really know much about Phish except I've never liked what I've heard, but this Gizzard song (making its live debut last night?) captures what I've always thought Phish sometimes sounds like (at least in my head):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON2YIIPCJr0

btw I'm kinda wondering which records to get, I've got Nonagon and Ice, Death, Planets etc. and I like both of those. I'm more into the band's krautrocky/proggy side than I am the metal stuff

Flying Microtonal Banana

laminated denim very kraut/prog, only 30 minutes but better for it i think.

Omnium Gatherum is a great grab-bag of everything. Polygonwanaland has Crumbling Castle, their great krautprog anthem. KG and LW are great subsequent volumes of their Turkish psych stuff.

cool thanks, I know my local shop has at least one of those

listening to Ice, Death, Planets etc. and I kinda get how they can do so much so fast - it's song based but I suspect like 2/3rds of it is improv. or at least began as improv. that's kinda what Can did I think.

I think their song writing has gotten more complex on recent albums, but yeah, this is basically true.

This is from the Ice Death press release, it's pretty interesting about the improv nature of that album, which was inspired itself by how impov'd a lot of The Dripping Tap was:

For this new album, however, the group wouldn’t be bringing in any pre-written songs or ideas; instead, they planned to cook up all the music together in the studio, on the spot.
Ambitious stuff, then. “All we had prepared as we walked into the studio were these seven song titles,” says Mackenzie. “I have a list on my phone of hundreds of possible song titles. I’ll never use most of them, but they’re words and phrases I feel could be digested into King Gizzard-world.” Mackenzie selected seven titles from his list that he felt “had a vibe”, and then attached a beats-per-minute value to each one. Each song would also follow one of the seven modes of the major scale: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian (“I’m not sure if many people will notice that,” says Mackenzie, “but any musical dorks will get it”).

Over seven days, the group recorded hours and hours of jams, dedicating a day to each mode and BPM. “Naturally, each day’s jams had a different flavour, because each day was in a different scale and a different BPM,” Mackenzie says. “We’d walk into the studio, set everything up, get a rough tempo going and just jam. No preconceived ideas at all, no concepts, no songs. We’d jam for maybe 45 minutes, and then all swap instruments and start again.”

The group ended each day with four-to-five hours of new jams in the can. Mackenzie auditioned those jams after the sessions were done, stitching them together into the songs that feature on the 21st studio album by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava (the initials of the title, IDPLMAL, spell out a mnemonic for the modes). “I went through it all and cut it up,” he said, of the hours of new music he’d recorded to two-track tape, preferring to “commit to print” over the conveniences of modern digital production. “It was a huge editing job, actually. I edited each track down to ten-to-fifteen minutes of music drawn from that specific day’s recordings, trying to find narratives, arcs and loops within the jams. So the songs were actually written during this editing phase, which was something we’d never done before ‘The Dripping Tap’. The raw power, the real energy, was just a loose jam, and then we refined it and edited it in a way that felt very musical.”

Having assembled full working instrumentals from these jams, Mackenzie and his bandmates began overdubbing flute, organ, percussion and extra guitar over the top. The lyrics, meanwhile, were a group effort. “We had an editable Google Sheet that we were all working on,” says Mackenzie. “Most of the guys in the band wrote a lot of the lyrics, and it was my job to arrange it all and piece it together.”

The result of this radical, experimental creative process is one of the densest, most unpredictable statements from a band whose work always rockets in from unexpected angles accompanied by a wealth of subtext and theorems. But you don’t even need even a passing understanding of those Ancient Greek musical modes to appreciate this adventurous new music. Highlights include ‘Lava’, a suite of pure fire music that swings between spiritual jazz and new age visions, powered by psychedelic saxophones, shimmering cymbals and McCoy Tyner-esque pianos, and the wormhole-riding prog-folk excursions of ‘Magma’, which leads unsuspecting listeners into unfamiliar realms via the siren call of Mackenzie’s flute, while ‘Ice V’ delivers apocalyptic funk with a cool hand at the controls, ‘Hell’s Itch’ hypnotises with its coiling guitar lines, hard honking harmonica and polymorphic basslines, and the ever-shifting ‘Iron Lung’ follows the choppy grooves of its happy/sad songcraft through unexpected twists and turns, a vision of pop refracted through a house of mirrors. Sinister closer Gliese 710, meanwhile, pushes ever onwards into the darkness, its lumbering-but-lithe heaviosity enough to get corpses to nod their heads.

Listen close and you can hear the electric interaction between the members of King Gizzard, the pure, distilled instrumental fire at their disposal, the simpatico musical conversations between these friends. Pull back and you’ll marvel at how their lightning-in-a-bottle improvisations yield songs of such craft, such laser-guided focus. This freeform creative process – chasing the moment in the jam, then selecting flashpoints and highlights afterwards – is one Mackenzie can see the family Gizzard returning to in the future. “We’re already jamming a lot more onstage,” he says. “I guess bands like Can made records this way before, but it’s new to us, and it was a really, really fun experience.”

Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava is already one of Mackenzie’s favourite Gizzard records to date. “It’s like we were able to escape song structures,” he says. “It felt ‘far out’ for us – we took heaps of risks and did heaps of different new things on this one. It wasn’t just about one concept – there’s stacks embedded in this one.”

Petro D operates along similar lines - all 7 tracks were written from improvs, each track written and recorded in a single day, each day of improv starting from scratch but following a loose idea of the "story" that track was supposed to "tell".

I’m not sure which is cooler, if that pr is true, or if it is just totally false—SIKE!

i like both possibilities but it seems v specific

they were on Office Hours with Tim Heidecker this week. wonder if those fanbases cross over much, both King Gizzard and On Cinema are great things to get into if you have hundreds of hours to spare

I'm digging PetroDragonic Apocalypse, I like them in thrash metal mode and this has a bit of that non-stop Nonagon Infinity energy as well.

I've quickly grown to appreciate a lot of what this band is up to, but I don't think I would have made the effort without the metal stuff.

Yeah, i find that I connect with them more in lava/death mode than in mushroom/planets mode (which is opposite of what I expected going in).

I think what makes them fun is they have both those sides.

They played Tennessee in drag. Kings.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CujMAKjR863/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

like a month ago, right?

Yup, but just shared on their instagram this morning

Gila Gila Gila!
WOO!

They just put out a 40-track official (but still already much bootlegged) compilation of all three Chicago nights.

After a pretty traditional journey (put off by name; people persuade me they're actually pretty good; attempt to listen but immediately give up when confronted by SO MANY albums) I saw them at the End of the Road festival, found them huge huge fun and now I just listen to The Dripping Tap all day.

\o/

sticking it on right now

Dripping Tap is their best track I reckon, no shade on their wealth of other brilliant music. It's like this glorious waterslide constructed from motorik jams.

it was certainly a very very persuasive way to open the set

One thing that has been helpful in wading through the massive discography is that it's so diverse that if you're looking for a particular sound, you can narrow it down somewhat. I'm far from comprehensive in my knowledge but this thread's namesake album is a good next step from the Dripping Tap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jnsD-fEHdY

new album is their synth album and comes in two versions - one with all the tracks under 5 minutes (but they seem to segue together judging by the three-song suite they've released) and one with all the tracks extended into 10+ minute jams for their longest album yet.

sounds quite promising

lol I just listened to their last album (which was straight up metal) so this is kind of a shock. I mean you know that's what they do but still. very interested in this one

out today. oh god uhh this sounds incredible.

Yeah I played some of the extended version and it was great. Probably just gonna wait for an LP release, it’s not like there’s a shortage of King Gizz records I haven’t heard

the short version is great but i'm a little disappointed the tracks don't quite all segue together

first one of the extended versions is wonderful

some of these extended versions are transcendent and some do not justify their length at all

I agree with that, but I'm still having a blast. When that one track ("Set"?) busts out a Freedom Williams-esque rap verse I cracked up.

Actually, there's a lot of stadium house/KLF coursing through a lot of this. But also nods to drum and bass, acid, etc.

Lol at this line in the allmusic review: "... giving the listener more time to wonder why the band chose to go down this route." Like, of all the bands that would make you ask "why," this band is not one of them.

this is excellent running music.

^hugely looking forward to running to this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHZR9SA5pOg

Before the album came out I saw a few references to Giorgio Moroder, and of course they've done Krautrock (sort of), so I was not expecting the Eurodance jock-jam vibe.

me neither but everything they do is a bit silly so it's not exactly out of character. I think this is what's so endearing about them, for example I'm not really a metal guy but I dug Petrodragonic Apocalypse because it wasn't afraid to be dumb in a real fun way. I mean "Gila Monster" is one of the few metal tracks I've heard that really made me laugh.

I know better than to get hung up on just one particular album from these guys and this made for a fun listen (esp the extended version), but I don't know, this whole album and rollout feels to me like they are leaning way too hard into pleasing the reddit fanbase or something. It just seems too intentionally meme ready and winking, or something. I dunno, it's hard to put into words how I'm feeling about it, but I guess this is where I think the silliness outstrips the quality of the music and I've never really felt that way before.

I enjoyed the euro techno jock jam esp because i was rollerskiing. at least they good at what they do.

found a copy of Polygondwanaland today and wow this is just up my alley. real progressive and kind of electrofunky. genuinely nuts that this is was one of FIVE albums they did that year. with most modern prog acts you're lucky if you get an album like this every 4 years.

oh my god this fucking rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hneOa-A7ua0

Oh man, it's gone. What was it? Something off the new record?

it shouldn't be, it's "Am I In Heaven?" from I'm in Your Mind Fuzz, the record's ten years old but I'm just hearing it recently

Oh weird, I couldn't see the YT. Great record, though!

New one is another turn, this time to '70s country rock. Some damn near choogle at times.

This is incredible. Am I going to have to get into creedence now?

"have to"

"Lord, why must you afflict me with the greatest singles act of 69-70! And their deep cuts are their best tracks! I rebuke you!"

lol otm

this is intriguing ... may report back

Yeah I take back my "damn near", there is definitely some choogle on this thing. Not CCR level choogle, mind, but it's pretty fun.

I saw them live for the first time on Saturday at their Gorge show. My lord was it a fun time. Took us on a journey. Honestly loved it so much. I went in a casual fan but now I swear by them.

Been watching a bunch of their shows streaming on YouTube this tour, and they are killing it.

Yeah, this tour is really something special.

Also, for the curious, they have a whole secondary Bandcamp set up where the live shows are "name your price": https://bootleggizzard.bandcamp.com/

They also have crisp soundboards for this tour up on Archive(dot)org and they can be accessed on the Relisten app.

I did not know about that. Amazing.

Yeah they absolutely blew me away live. I now understand all of the genre hopping and multi albums a year... all makes for one hell of a live show/band. They are also so unbelievably talented, effortlessly melted our faces for 3 straight hours without stopping. Truly a special band.

also for the sake of it. is dripping tap their ramble tamble? starts the album, begins normal enough then very quickly ascends into guitar bliss, and then back. I dunno, all this ccr/gizzard talk got me thinking.

sometimes i think dripping tap is all the kglw i need, and i mean that in the best way possible

I saw them 2 weeks ago. I'm pretty casual too and didn't recognize 80% of the stuff they played but it was really fucking good. Really felt like I was witnessing something special. Not only were they excellent musicians but as showmen I think they were incredible. If the crowd was feeling something they just kept going with it. They looked like they were having a ton of fun doing it too. If I have one complaint it's that it was almost too much. They did about 3 hours here and when they're ending their set with the heaviest stuff...idk, at one point I was like enough already

sometimes i think dripping tap is all the kglw i need, and i mean that in the best way possible

It's a lot of what they do contained within a microcosm (LOL 'micro', it's 17 minutes long) (and obvs it doesn't contain the metal stuff, the electronic stuff since, but) - moreover, it's a krautrock epic that is just tonnes and tonnes of fun, like a fairground ride that has its quiet bits and its fast bits and you know what's coming but the anticipation of it, the thrill of it, the bonhomie (even though the lyric is, as ever, fairly bleak) is thoroughly addictive. It's definitely not all the kglw I need, but as a route-in, it's perfect.

100% agree about the showmanship. at the one I just went to there was a point during "Venusian 1" where the front barricade broke. while the staff was trying to repair it, Joey Walker called his mom and after that the band broke out into an a cappella version of "Vegemite" which was very charming. soon enough they started back up like nothing happened. thought it was a masterclass in how to handle a weird unpredictable thing happening during your show

Omnium Gatherum is one hell of a record.

That's probably my favorite overall.

Yeah, that one and PetroDragonic are the ones I generally go for, but honestly I sometimes forget which album is which.

These are my favorites (but I have not listened to everything):

Omnium Gatherum
Ice, Death
Butterfly 3000
KG/LW
Flying Microtonal Banana
Mind Fuzz

A better question is whether I have heard anything from them I have outright disliked. I haven't listened to everything, either (by them, or GBV, or the Fall, or ... ), but everything I have heard has been at least enjoyable.

I'm not a fan of Garden Goblin on Omnium Gatherum and it was a real mood killer when they did it live; also I listened to Eyes Like The Sky once and that was enough, though more out of lack of interest than dislike. But otherwise agreed, very few low points in their discography.

Eyes Like The Sky is such an outlier, but I was pretty moved when watching (via YouTube) them play it at Hollywood Bowl as a tribute to Amby's late dad.

I'm falling hard for these guys. Long time coming. When I got into Daniel Romano six years ago, all Dan fans seemed to also love Gizzard, and over the years I would sample new stuff as it came out. I liked Changes and PetroDragonic well enough, I just never felt compelled to replay anything. Turns out one full listen to Omnium Gatherum was all I really needed. I can't get enough of Omnium / PetroDragonic / The Silver Cord / Flight b741 this week. I love how easygoing these guys are in their pursuit of the muse. Sounds like an oxymoron but they seem to have perfected a balance between working hard and taking it easy.

Omnium's like a Gizzard greatest hits, though none of the tracks existed until the album was released.

^ That's fantastic.

Also, reading through this thread keeps cracking me up / nodding passionately in agreement:

I'd look through their discogs list, but I really don't have that kind of spare time...

It's his signature move, kind of like Ryu saying "Hadouken"

Dropping Tap remains astonishing - like a rollercoaster fashioned from prog and krautrock. 17 minutes pass in what feels like seconds.

my other fav on omnium right now is "evilest man." the subject matter of "conservative media" is like .. proceed with caution for me, lol, not something i necessarily want to hear a song about, you know? but i'm all in when it gets to this section:

I wonder if he knows this song
Probably read before it was done
He probably hacked my phone
I'll change the locks when I get home

and after the last line it just blasts off into one of their psych guitar explosions - like it's such a gratifying affirmation of interior personal space in the face of some hall of mirrors nightmare land.

let us not forget that they once cut a concept album that ends with a cyborg vomiting the universe into extinction

...found them huge huge fun and now I just listen to The Dripping Tap all day.

phanton island is out. sounding fan fucking tastic so far. orchestration looks real good on them.

This band rules.

tempted to road trip out to colorado to see them in august. buena vista is a v pretty place.

I took a flight and then road trip to see them at The Gorge last year and it was incredible.

ticket prices are even like not terrible for the back lawn in colorado springs. but then i'd have to go to colorado springs...

i have tickets to see them in 6 weeks in connecticut. very curious if the orchestra will be there for the whole show, or if they'll have a segment of their usual thing (in so far as they have a usual thing lol). never seen them. anyone have any intel?

goddamn this album is off the hook!

disappointed we missed out on tickets for their show at the royal albert hall but we got them for their "rave set" (complete performance of the silver cord).

the new record is top-tier gizz! it's kind of a tear-jerker in places, but constantly scooting between moods. it's very emotionally direct. the beginning of "lonely cosmos" has a very straight-ahead plangent vocal from .. i think that's ambrose? lots of stuff about fatherhood ("eternal return" especially). the mid stretch is so strong and there isn't a less-than-excellent track here. "sea of doubt" is a beautiful song about depression. a lot of moments things seem to be building up to a guitar-rock climax but instead they fake-out into mellow chamber psych-pop. stu's "wooo"s are all stretched out in slow motion. the last song, "grow wings and fly", is exactly what you think it's going to be from the title and god does it TAKE YOU THERE.

they are the best band on earth right now.

oh man i just looked at reviews of this and i feel dumber! someone calls it 'overstuffed.' all of the moment-to-moment ingredients in this are well-considered and contribute to colors and feelings that are the substance of the power of the record! i've listened to it maybe 6-7 times? it took that many listens for the overall picture to focus. it's one of those that for whatever reason.. like my first reaction was amazement at the one-two punch of the first two tracks and then the rest kind of blurred a little bit. but i mean i could pick out any one of these tracks now and just stand in one place agape at what i'm hearing. for starters the lyrics and vocal performances they all deliver are .. it just feels like they pour everything of themselves into them. there are still bits i'm figuring out the words for but it's honestly like .. this is a spiritual sojourn of a record. that might make it uninteresting or sappy to some people i guess. but god this is the peak of a very talented bunch of players and songwriters who are dramatically changing scenes every minute or so .. so the level of the music supports the soul-searching stuff. anyway this is basically my aoty i think. it's certainly made me cry (and laugh!) more than anything else i've heard recently. and there's a section at the very end of "sea of doubt". the song is this consideration of well really an existential crisis, the titular "sea of doubt". the basic gist of the last section is, musically, what would it sound like to be "out of the sea of doubt"? and it sounds like it! it sounds like the feeling i get when i meditate. it's amazing!

I have listened once already but I wasn't concentrating. I will do better.

haha i'm just so psyched on it. i didn't really try with 'silver cord' and i'll be real i haven't even checked out their record from last year. it could just be a right time right place right person kind of thing. i have this feeling now like i HAVE to see them in colorado. like drive out there alone and go be a hippy for a night.

one other thing, about the orchestra - i really love both the orchestration and how it's integrated into the songs. i couldn't imagine a better way for them to pull it off. it feels very next-level musically for them. like it turns the whole thing into an extremely musical experience, if that makes sense. overall it's more comfortingly pretty but their freakier elements are definitely still out in full force, just in conversation with the more musically traditional stuff. there's pedal steel on this on .. 2 tracks i think .. and jeez that's a sound they should use more often. artists the album has reminded me of: van dyke parks, funkadelic, van morrison.

brian wilson! judee sill! haha ok i'll stop.

i've listened to it maybe 6-7 times? it took that many listens for the overall picture to focus. it's one of those that for whatever reason.

Okay, that's great to hear. My first listen was really blurry -- I *was* paying attention but the only thought I had when the album was over, was, "oh that's DENSE," which -- granted -- is a great thought to have about a new album by a band you love. But it felt forbidding.

Flight b741 is my favorite of theirs and they've been saying Phantom Island is a companion piece / direct follow-up. That's technically reason enough for patience, but map's emotional posts are a much better one -- thank you!

hey thanks :). i'm really looking forward to diving in to flight b741 then! also just want to say your posts here have been a real bright spot on ilm since you joined. cheers!

after one run through I am finding it a little overwhelming but i suspect if i give it a couple more listens it's gonna click, the songs and arrangements sound high quality, just dense. i would say it is a continuation of flight b741 in the sense that they are both more classic rock adjacent relative to what i think of as their home base sound of psych/garage, but maybe it's a fools errand to think of them as having a baseline, obviously they have strayed pretty far in just about every direction. i am going to see them in connecticut next month so i will be sure to make the time to get into this album before then, and map your enthusiasm is pumping me up for both that prep and the show itself.

Dense you say? #onethread

characteristically high quality but not as interesting as the latin/cuban album a couple years ago, or that pre-covid mpb/tropicalia thing they did.

kind of has a rock opera feel to it. i feel like they are being intentionally frustrating in places because they're in search of something. or rather they just know that what they're searching for isn't clear. and what they dig up along the way is worth following along for. "there's a light at the end of the tunnel / and the light is soft and subtle"

Thanks map :-)

That's a great couplet. If I have an issue with Gizzard it's that their lyrics lag rather far behind most of my favorite stuff, *but* there are places on Flight b741 that've had me thinking, "ah, but will their lyrics remain substandard for much longer?"

This one feels more in a Zappa/jam (Phish?) mode than some, but I don't like those acts and do like this.

They're so fucking good at what they do, and such a tight band -- after I fell for Flight b741 I happened to revisit an old favorite "choogle" band, One Eleven Heavy -- and 111H *is* excellent too, but god, they sounded stiff as a board compared to the chooglin' Gizz.

The diversity is what originally hooked me. Like, their psych fuzz is legit. Their krautrock is legit. Their metal is legit. Most jam bands seem like poseurs even when they're doing what they do best.

yeah I mean their whole thing is pretty simple actually, they just love playing music. even when they do stuff they're not so good at you appreciate the fact that they tried.

This is less Zappa/phish than it is a (dece) tribute to turn of the 70s rnb stage-pop, all it needs is costumes and dance moves

costumes and dance moves, eh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7t2FL1SRaE

it's been bugging me that i got that couplet wrong - it's 'there's a light at the end of the tunnel / and it appears soft and subtle". anyway this album is still wrecking me. it's not all dense, some of it is disarmingly simple, but the dense sections are unfolding nicely for me.

Goddamit, that's even better

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jun/24/we-have-a-high-appetite-for-risk-inside-king-gizzard-the-lizard-wizards-historic-eu-tour

I loved this - wish more bands would adopt the same attitude:

But for Mackenzie, it seems more about the sense that every creative whim is worth honouring, and every bit of life really is worth figuring out creatively, indicative of a tendency towards archivism.

but also...they don't rehearse? and they finish the setlist 30 minutes before the show? what if one of them doesn't remember how the song goes?

Jam, lol. Improvise!

One of the more interesting things I read about them is that they really didn't know anything about the US jam bands, not even the Dead, until relatively recently. They just ... follow their bliss?

jam bands aren't a thing at all outside the usa so it'd be pretty unexpected if any of them were a big influence on their approach instead of the krautrock they cite

ya its real cool they're as popular as they are, I mean regardless if you like the music or not they clearly really love to play and are willing to try things. they've got really great stage energy too, I didn't know much of the material they played when I saw them but I did get the feeling that they were willing to extend something out if the audience was feeling it. they seem to attract a lot of people who are in bands themselves, I wonder if that's because they're really living the dream a lot of bands have

This band basically reminds me of Circle if Circle had been normal

they seem to attract a lot of people who are in bands themselves, I wonder if that's because they're really living the dream a lot of bands have

OTM. Back in college, I had a fun two years in a band with a few of my best friends. We broke up when I moved to China but we were silly and passionate and finding Gizzard felt like, "Wow, if our band had stayed together and put 100% effort into the music, isn't this exactly what we would have turned into?" (Give or take respective levels of adventure / talent / genius etc.)

Not surprised that a lot of other musicians would feel the exact same way.

I've not listened to much Ween, but is there fan crossover? I suspect so.

But yeah, the Gizz is so fun partly because they are having so much fun. They Love Music.

jam bands aren't a thing at all outside the usa so it'd be pretty unexpected if any of them were a big influence on their approach instead of the krautrock they cite

They told me a bunch of years ago that they formed as a "dumb Grateful Dead" and were heavily into jamming from the off. I'm not saying they have a top ten favourite performances of Dark Star list in their heads, but I don't think the jam-band phenom is unknown to them - but also, crucially, it doesn't define them.

But also, all this talk of fun shouldn't obscure how excellent their songcraft and performances are becoming! My cutoff for wholehearted interest seems to be around 2021 (I love love love Butterfly 3000, but haven't had luck connecting with the KGLW double) and within those five years since then they've made at least five phenomenal albums, by my reckoning.

That's the thing, I don't like jam bands, not even the Dead, and certainly not their more recent ilk, but I really enjoy King Gizzard. Mostly, I think, because Gizz is tight in a way the Dead is not (and probably not supposed to be) and compellingly creative in a way Phish wants to be (but imo isn't).

This is the Dead-mentioning interview with Stu I read some time ago: https://relix.com/articles/detail/king-gizzard-the-lizard-wizard-a-beautiful-mind-fuzz/

During that five-album span, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard also exploded on the live-music circuit, headlining ampitheaters in the U.S. for the first time and aging into the rare torch-receiving act to simultaneously draw in hipster tastemakers, hard-edged metal fans and off-season Phishheads at any given show. It was a long time coming: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have been gradually expanding their own Gizzverse for just over a decade and their rise through the ranks has been singular and organic. In that time, they’ve learned how to make their fans happy—though the group has long staked their claim to one of the more adventurous corners of the jam-scene, recently they have started thinking of themselves as more of a “jamband” than “a band who jams.”

“I didn’t understand the Grateful Dead— they weren’t a cultural phenomenon here like they were in the States,” Mackenzie says, while sitting for a 9 a.m. Zoom at his studio, his two-year-old daughter already awake for the day. “So, early on, when we said we were a jamband, we meant that we had no fucking idea what we were doing. We would just get up there and improvise. The vocabulary wasn’t learned from jambands. But, as soon as we started coming to the States, we noticed that some people would come to every show on the tour. We would always think, ‘I feel so bad for these people. They’re coming to watch the exact same show every night.’ I didn’t realize that they saw this seed of improvisation within our music. I didn’t have access to the cultural understanding of what touring with a band meant. But spending a lot of time in the States opened us up to playing different, unique shows every night and improvising a lot more. And I love that—it makes us feel like we are musicians rather than performers.”

The Gizzard leader says that he will often look back on the group’s past setlists before they return to any given city, in order to offer a unique show. He’s also found himself going down a deep Grateful Dead rabbit hole in recent years.

“As soon as I realized that there were hundreds of versions of the same songs that were all amazing and different, I was like, ‘OK, I get it,’” Mackenzie—who sings and provides guitar, keyboards, flute and a range of other instruments in Gizzard— admits. “When I find a Dead song I like, instead of listening to it over and over again—which is what I do when I find a band that I’m quite obsessive about—I’ll listen to the same song from different years. I said to myself: ‘I understand how this is life for people.’”

“Stu’s not a great sleeper,” Harwood says with a smile, noting that he has just dropped his wife off at work and is preparing to walk his dog. “We will be on tour, or he will get to the studio in the morning, and he will say, ‘Man, I was up until 2 a.m. listening to Grateful Dead. I just couldn’t sleep—I got into this YouTube hole.’”

I think it was really the metal stuff that roped me in. King Gizzard's metal is imo legit, and I can't imagine any other jam band pulling off that authentic love of the genre. Plenty of those jam bands flit around, but it strikes me as somewhat ironic pastiche a la Zappa, which drives me nuts. I think a similar key to a group like (eg) Camper Van Beethoven is that when they do pastiche it's enjoyable to me as more than just taking the piss or a goof. CVB were big Deadheads too, I think/know, but the way the songs and music and playing comes together is special and enjoyable in its own unique way. Maybe that's Stu distinction between "jamband" and "band that jams."

Going to genius.com to read the lyrics I find this gem re: "I’m tossing and turning between my time with a scarecrow and my tin man wife":

What Cook is basically saying is that his friends are idiots and his wife is heartless.

Hahaha!

Played the new album (and some other choice cuts) for a group of people that had largely never heard, or even heard of, the band. All thumbs up except, oddly enough, from the one jam band fan, who had at least heard of but never heard King Gizzard. But he's a dork, and his opinion is what I might expect from someone that loves the String Cheese Incident, not least because "they are really good musicians," while of course discounting all the shitty music that falls under the umbrella of "really good musicians."

Weird, all my irl jam band fans absolutely love the Gizz

What's not to love? There's something for everyone! Like I said, this guy (friend though he may be) is a big dork with generally dubious musical tastes.

Aerodynamic ;_;

"I said, "I have always wondered if I could step out of my body
Would I be a fish out of water, or like a school in harmony?"
So, Miss Moon, if I could have one wish, I’d turn my hands into wings
I’d say goodbye to the fish and I'd jump from the highest cliff""

(then the "Never gonna get there / never gonna get there" section comes in. have i heard anything that makes me want to shake my ass quite like this breakdown? i don't think so.)

...

"I ain’t got hope but I can’t help but smile
The forty-odd thousand foot of tears won’t save me from an appetite
I accept my fate
My time is nigh
I’m just gonna sit here and watch the waves roll by"

just wanna second Josh's post about how authentic this band sounds, I like that they don't feel the need to go "we're gonna do this the Gizz way", instead they just dive straight in to whatever they're doing. maybe they like having a lot of music out there where you couldn't really tell it's by the same band. obviously it doesn't all work but its at least apparent that they have an authentic love for what they're doing. I think this is the same reason why people dig Ween, that's the vibe I get from them too

i feel like an important part of what makes this band so special that they're like .. tackling the great questions in their own way - what does it mean to be human? what does it mean to be alive? what is joy? what does pain mean? they have this rep as a super good vibes band, and that is of course the most important part of what they're doing, but the reason they're able to get there is because they go through the shit in their songs .. staring at the devil, gazing into the abyss, feeling like strangers in their own body and strangers in the universe. if they didn't understand what joy was on the other side of that they'd be more like, say, radiohead, who also tapped into some of these kinds of existential undercurrents but couldn't express actual joy in their music to save their lives. you get the feeling that gizz are genuinely humble seekers. i love the aspect of the new album that's just like .. "i miss my girlfriend / partner and my kids"... "what i wouldn't give for a feel right now." something so relatable to that. their cosmic thrust is so down-to-earth and not precious at all.

i'm basically all tears through the last song on the new one, "grow wings and fly". "let's get real high / let's get real high / transcend this life" .. "i wanna drink from the beehive / i wanna jump from the high wire / like a moth into a fire / i'm gonna burn up on the pyre" .... "When I first saw you Lying there in wait With your unearthed, buried smile I sing to my duckling Yes, you must learn to use your wings But it is I that will be taught by you to fly" ... "Knock the surrounding buildings down, I'm calling out for help I'm shedding my skin like a snake slithering You gotta stop the overwhelming self-doubt Catch me dancing in the summer rain with my tongue out Woohoo! Yeah! (Ow!)" .. that last "woohoo" oh my god, by that point i'm in tears shaking with my hands up, and usually i'm on a trail running back to my car....

Pretty key, perhaps, because lyrics are generally the Achilles heel of jam bands.

Anyone else notice how many Gizz songs feature someone joyfully shouting "woo!"

Yeah, tbh, it does get to be a little too much on some of their live shows.

Wow, this is really good. The strings really put it over the top as far as actually sounding like the '70s, more than many records that try to sound like the '70s.

👍👍

Anyone else notice how many Gizz songs feature someone joyfully shouting "woo!"

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, July 2, 2025 1:33 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes the fanbase seems to be very aware of this

nb the woos on the new one are mostly soft-focus and stretched out

thank you for sharing your ecstatic experience! i wouldn't have listened otherwise and i'm enjoying it

i think also frogbs is onto something with the Ween comparison. i've only encountered annoying fans of this band in the wild, not that it should matter, and that was a long time ago. but i've always really liked what i've heard, in spite of that and in spite of the name. maybe someday i will explore the catalogue more deeply beyond Sketches of Brunswick East, which i can't remember anything about except that i liked it

i'm not saying Ween fans are annoying. almost no sentence in that post was related to any of the others

we most certainly are though

i'm def annoying

I've never looked into this band's origin story, did they start out strictly as garage rockers and evolve and expand from there?

i feel like an important part of what makes this band so special that they're like .. tackling the great questions in their own way - what does it mean to be human? what does it mean to be alive? what is joy? what does pain mean? they have this rep as a super good vibes band, and that is of course the most important part of what they're doing, but the reason they're able to get there is because they _go through the shit_ in their songs .. staring at the devil, gazing into the abyss, feeling like strangers in their own body and strangers in the universe. if they didn't understand what _joy_ was on the other side of that they'd be more like, say, radiohead, who also tapped into some of these kinds of existential undercurrents but couldn't express actual joy in their music to save their lives. you get the feeling that gizz are genuinely humble seekers. i love the aspect of the new album that's just like .. "i miss my girlfriend / partner and my kids"... "what i wouldn't give for a feel right now." something so relatable to that. their cosmic thrust is so down-to-earth and not precious at all.

Loving every word of this, thank you Map

aw thank you! and thanks budo jeru, glad my words got you to check it out - high compliments :)

I've never looked into this band's origin story, did they start out strictly as garage rockers and evolve and expand from there?

P much as I understand it. They all had dozens of bands on the go, Gizz was a shambolic chaos jam thing they all had in common and it was the one that stuck. Earliest singles and first album super Nuggetsy, the press they got was all “acid psych rock” and Stu goes, “Fuck that” and smashes the pigeonhole on album #2. And when your second album is a spoken word spaghetti western audiobook, the trajectory is set for you to only spin further out with each subsequent record.

kinda feel bad for the other people in that orbit who didn't show up to the jam session

But that’s rule #1 of Jam Club: you gots to turn up to the session

the woos on the new one are mostly soft-focus and stretched out

What you need to keep in mind about the 'woo's is

It's his signature move, kind of like Ryu saying "Hadouken"

That's all it took for me. (Thanks Moodles in 2022)

Map, loving all these follow-up posts. I was kicking myself on the train to old Canton yesterday for not loading Phantom Island onto the walkman. The weather outside the window was perfect for it.

Also, let me just put in a quick plug for Butterfly 3000, lyrically it's their "I'm in lockdown, having acid flashbacks of good parties" / Stu's "my first child was just born and I love her and my wife and omgggg" album, sounds like a modest little electro-psych folk album but it's cocooned its way into my Gizzard Top 3 (with Flight b741 and the full-length Silver Cord, just edging out the also impeccable Omnium Gatherum)

Yeah Butterfly 3000 is such a joy, like an early 80s new age synth-pop record, love it so much

my favorite album re: butterfly. but so many good ones depending on what mood im in.

oh boy i am in for an evening with butterfly 3000. wow jeez it's sounding good 🤩

oh shit shanghai - there's a shanghai reference on the new one too. seems like it might be a significant place.

"blue morpho" is v v good

oh my god "interior people" this just keeps getting better.

"catching smoke" is my new favorite weed song.

*sigh* this album is like a cult i wanna join. what a beautiful record.

Welcome, o Map, newest devotee

Catching Smoke is all-time. Every second crushes

That might be my favorite album of theirs. A lot of the new stuff not hitting me as much as the 2020-2022 run.

Oh good -- PBKR, could you please make your case for KGLW? I've listened to it/them a couple of times and theoretically it sounds so much like music I should love, but so far, no spark.

I listen to them mostly at the gym, so they are a vibes band for me. I don't really focus on lyrics - I just let them wash over me. KGLW both nod slightly to African/Middle Eastern music and use repetitive guitar and rhythmic elements lending the music a mystical vibe. That consistent groove really works for me, especially at the gym.

The more recent albums are fine, but seem less distinctive to me. They've allowed so much other music into their music it feels a little homogenized lately or like they are relying more on concept than the songs. I don't dislike them, just nothing has grabbed me. Ice, Death is the last one that really knocked me out at some point. I do keep trying, though.

I really dig LW, much more than KG. Lods of the tracks give me the relentless driving forward feeling of The Dripping Tap, with added microtonalism. Supreme Ascendancy and Static Electricity maybe the highlights though.

i gave flight 741b a listen this morning on a run - butt rock sounds really good on them. just an incredible vibe on it. more uplifting than phantom island. did someone say they were supposed to be related records or something? i think the level of quality on this one and then phantom island is just crazy crazy high. the albums have such fully formed identities. the sound of them is really different too. it's amazing to me that they are just as fluent in making things sound different as they are in writing songs that draw on a lot of different things. i'm trying to think of what band it reminds me of when they get the butt rock riffage going. someone else would know. it reminds me of that amazing ilm butt rock thread haha.

probably because it's the 4th of july but flight 741b sounds like an american record! sounds like bbq music. it's what i wish the grateful dead sounded like. when people get all hyped up about the dead and you see that sparkle in their eyes... this is the fulfillment of that to me.

yall i'm basically looking at a king gizzard summer. i'm going to be playing a lot more and very much looking forward to it. wish it was easier to make it out to see them. i know they'll be back so.

i really like how they're expanding with songcraft into more classic 70s pop / rock influences fwiw. i think they're great at it. naturals. and still such a singular and rich voice that's very much their own. i'm really happy flight 741b is so good. time to go back to the silver cord again.

i really like how they're expanding with songcraft into more classic 70s pop / rock influences fwiw.

one of my favourite of their songs, Beginner's Luck, was an early precursor of this imo

god "antarctica" is such a jam. there's country and butt rock in flight b741 but i also hear gospel. and blues ofc.

It's lots of good things all blended together, isn't it, Map? I've been calling it prog choogle, which I must resist conflating into "proogle" because "proogle" is an ugly-sounding term. The song structures are wonderfully bonkers. Something like Le Risque may sound like a fairly straightahead rock song to start with, but -- actually (been a spell since I listened so my memory may have deceived me, but I *think* that) it has neither verses nor choruses. Every vocal segment is its own melodic thing.

My current favorite moment in all of Gizzard is HELLLLOOOOOO EVIL KENEAVAL!!!

haha i love that line

i'm really caught off guard by this section in "daily blues"

Find that person you hate, and (find that person you hate, and)
Grab 'em by the hand, look 'em in the eye
And say, "I love you"

I'm usually pretty suspicious / annoyed by that sort of thing but in this case it just melts me tbh

listening to b741 and phantom island back-to-back it sort of feels like b741 is party time hoe down get together and phantom island is sober next morning cleaning up the mess and looking at your calendar. but weirdly i think there's more angst in b741 and the uplifting stuff on phantom island is more considered and affecting.

i'm also really loving butterfly 3000. an intoxicating kaleidoscopic dreamspace. "catching smoke" just makes me smile all the way through. i really like "interior people" but it's funny how he's like .. "interior people are part of my scene but i don't jibe with them anymore"... and i'm like ope that's me you're talking about there lol.

Phantom Island sounding smoother and better with every listen. Thanks for laying all these bridges down for me to cross over, Map.

Aerodynamic, PHEW

Oh, and this jam in the middle of Silent Spirit, good lord ... I love when they bring their Power of Jam to bear on a tight song

Is this the only Gizz thread? I wonder what is was about Nonagon Infinity that finally prompted someone to start a Gizz thread. This might be the first mention of them:

updates from chuck and betty (Hunt3r) wrote this on thread Rolling Stoner/Psych/Freak/Doom/Sludge/Retro/Drone/Space Thread 2014: These Start at 11 on board I Love Music on May 10, 2014

http://kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com/album/float-along-fill-your-lungs

how could a band named king gizzard and the wizard lizard be this fucking good

If so -- excellent way to introduce them

damn i feel so recognized lol.

otoh i listened to b741 yest for the first time and bloozminica noodles gizz is so my least fave stylation. actual deletion from library haha. they still a total fave tho.

bloozminica bloozmonica you make the unfunny jammy backwash term you make, eh!

how could a band named king gizzard and the wizard lizard be this fucking good

I was put off them before I heard them by some posh guy at a Ty Segall show in Camden who blethered on about them all the way through Ty's set. But when I finally heard them it was beautiful

i probly wrote this before, but in 2014 my musician work pal got back from Austin Psychefest vacay and was like "you must hear this band, they are the future." and so he played "head on" and "float along etc" and yup. in think the show he saw was later released as one of their several live releases.

So and some dude (tech bro, been to Burning Man many times) and I are going to see this band…I have only barely encountered their music, don't have a good handle… but this guy likes em a lot.

it seems to me that the name is something that indeed a bunch of buds in lots of different bands would call their party joke band they do on a lark together, and when it becomes clear that this is the one that has a future, they'd better come up with something better.

I live in jam band country, i.e. Fairfield County CT, and so this show in New Haven surely is booked cuz jam band people, who I largely cannot fucking stand, like this band… recently another parent who grew up in the town I live in mentioned going to see "dave" throughout her life, and I had to bite my tongue…like "Dave? that's all you have to say and everyone knows who you mean, huh?" These kinda people would be terrified by Thee Oh Sees or Ty Segall, so I hope this band will not seem to me live to be the same as, say, Goose…

1. This morning I listened to Flight B471 based on Map's recommendation, and I gotta say it was far far too Dead/Phish/good time smiley for me…like, what's a much darker, meaner record than the above? Gimme some Neu-ish shit! Some Crimson shit, some sabbath-y shit…

2. at this show, they will be with an orchestra: I think this convention sucks whenever I've heard Kiss or ELP or anyone other than Barry White do it, so is this something the band does well?

try Nonagon Infinity for motorik garage rock or Infect the Rats Nest for metal

These kinda people would be terrified by Thee Oh Sees or Ty Segall

I know it's not quite what you are saying, but when I saw Osees a few years ago, there was a trio of high school age kids moshing around in matching King Gizz hockey jerseys!

it seems to me that the name is something that indeed a bunch of buds in lots of different bands would call their party joke band they do on a lark together, and when it becomes clear that this is the one that has a future, they'd better come up with something better.

This is true, but 15 years, what is a better name?

what's a much darker, meaner record than the above? Gimme some Neu-ish shit! Some Crimson shit, some sabbath-y shit…

Petro-Dragonic is pretty thrilling, grizzly thrash-metal. KG and LW dig into their microtonal, Turkish psych mode with plenty of grungey noise. But I don't really think there's much meanness to them. Or darkness, even - the spectre of climate death is ever-present, but even then, there's something unshakeably redemptive and joyful about their music.

But don't be fooled by Flight B471. They dig the Dead, for sure, but they're a crazy weird band at heart, and there's every chance a choogle might lead to some Slayer-esque neck-snapping, some Kraut-meets-Moroder electronica or even some gabba rave.

there's reich and stereolab and neu! in butterfly 3000, some songs are more unsettling while others are more smiley. laminated denim is in that same reich/sterelab/neu vein and is unsettling throughout. stevie is right that at their heart they are a joyful band. but their "shadow work" (sorry to use the therapy speak phrase) is real.

omnium gatherum is an excellent grab bag and one that a lot of people recommend to start. the first track, "dripping tap" is 18 minutes long and goes harder than psych-rock boredoms (think super roots 7).

ahhh yeah they played "Dripping Tap" when I saw them, I'd never heard it before, needless to say I was absolutely floored

ice, death, planets... is sadder / more subdued, that one always had an "on the beach" vibe to me.

man "ice death" is a depressing google fyi

that's the one I started with - good record but I think it's one of those where you start to understand how they write so much material so quickly. all the tunes seem born out of jam sessions. that's probably why people like it so much.

"the dripping tap" is one of their very best tracks yeah

at this show, they will be with an orchestra: I think this convention sucks whenever I've heard Kiss or ELP or anyone other than Barry White do it, so is this something the band does well?

their most recent album, phantom island, was recorded with an orchestra, hence the orchestral shows on the upcoming tour. it's firmly in 70s rock pastiche territory but leans more psych-pop than flight b471 (they're from the same sessions). idk what to expect in terms of back catalogue with the orchestra, they haven't done this before. i'd hazard a guess that they'll probably lean more into the chiller psych-pop side of things with the orchestra, rather than extended krautrock jams or microtonal metal but who really knows

Gimme some Neu-ish shit! Some Crimson shit, some sabbath-y shit…

Yeah, start with Omnium Gatherum imo. You get to hear a lot of sides of the band. And then also yeah, imo follow-up with PetroDragonic Apocalypse, my reasoning being that once you hear all these different sides of King Gizzard, including their legit metal side, when you do come across something jammy or noodly or Dead/Phishy (I am not a fan of the Dead or Phish) you can hear those songs/albums as anomalous rather than their default mode. And then after that there is tons of other stuff to explore that is all over the place. And when in doubt, if you want to see a special band ride the divide between stupid and clever, there is always "Rattlesnake."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-i1XZc8ZwA

Just a band having a blast messing with microtonal motorik. Also worth it for the youtube comments.

Two minutes in and I have listened to this song for five hours.

some sabbath-y shit…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC6-8zVT0j8

Fantastic YouTube comments thread, thank you for the info JiC!!

“How many people should we have in the band?”

“...how many people do you know?”

* * *

Australians with a song about the only venomous snake that doesn't exist in Australia.

* * *

Really glad they took almost 8 minutes on this one. You really can't express all these emotions in just 5 or 6 minutes

* * *

I like the bit about the rattlesnake.

Really glad they took almost 8 minutes on this one. You really can't express all these emotions in just 5 or 6 minutes

Oh, OTM

Jesus Christ, do I ever fuck with Petrodragonic! I started with the record I would have the least interest in, but am now looking forward to checking out all of the Gizzard records you guys recommend! HAIL ILM!

1. There really aren't any jam bands or jam band people outside of the U.S., are there? New England is obviously the jam strong hold, but does the circuit go up to Canada? The dead played overseas, but not as much as many peers, and my guess is that if Phish ever went to Europe, it was cuz Elektra wanted them to and extended tour support, but I don't think they really ever tour there, and so does anyone know if I'm wrong that there are jam band people in Europe or Oceania or Japan?

2. If these Giz fellas didn't really have jam band culture in Australia, they certainly have broad tastes. Can we assume that 2000-2025, Napster to streaming enabled them to explore and then master a lot of styles? What other acts display as many styles as they? the 54 year old louisvillian writing these words nominates NRBQ…

Yeah, Phish hasn't toured overseas since the Japan tour in 2000, iirc. And, for the most part, their European jaunts were mostly playing to ex-pats, except for the festivals and the tour they opened for Santana.

There was a few British jam bands that followed in the wake of the Dead, Mighty Baby being one that comes immediately to mind, but doesn't seem like the whole jam band thing ever really took off in Europe. It tended to blend in more with the prog stuff anyway, which is fine by me. I get more mileage out of those European bands that "jammed" but leaned more towards prog/krautrock/heavy psych stuff anyway.

good, vc. btw i moved away from my hometown and fairfield county just to get that guitar tone and derpy noodle pedal style the fuck away from my body lol

jk. i think.

I'm reminded of all these late'60s British acts supposedly inspired by the Band that end up sounding little like the Band. Traffic, Fairport Convention, George Harrison, Derek & the Dominoes, etc. Obv. all those acts jam, but they don't really ... noodle, if there's a distinction to be made.

I think, as mentioned, that what makes Gizz kinda unique is that while they can do a convincing Phish impression (or so I've gleaned from limited Phish exposure), imo bands like Phish and their ilk could never make a convincing thrash record. Or krautrock record. Or etc.

Big Gizz dude on youtube that uploaded that great live performance I posted a couple of posts above has this featured:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZM6wEU9KL4

Bootleg Gila presents a fan-made documentary chronicling the incredible journey of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. From their DIY roots in 2010 all the way to the release of their latest 2024 album Flight B741.

Crafted using every publicly available interview, performance, and behind-the-scenes clip I could find, this video dives deep into the evolution of one of the most prolific and genre-defying bands of our time.

btw, plug for Fomies. Kind of fills in the Venn diagram between Osees and King Gizz. very much enjoying their new album:

https://fomies.bandcamp.com/album/liminality

Nice TY I like that. And Swiss? i’m at an oldness in which other country-ness adds extra to me. it’s not true but eh. so i look at like teksti-tv 666’s finnish titles enjoyably baffled.

My before mentioned musician friend listened to what I shared of Fomies and basically said “i have not heard them til now but yeah this is basically gizzcore. theyre a genre now. i also hear some oh sees.”

Wow colossus sounds ii sounds like fig wasp

Can we assume that 2000-2025, Napster to streaming enabled them to explore and then master a lot of styles?

I think that definitely gave them access to all this music, but I genuinely think the x-factor is Stu/the band's infinite hunger for new ideas, and willingness to follow those ideas through to their finest execution. I've interviewed Stu a bunch the last few years, and what makes it a joy is that he understands the discrete concept behind each album, is excited to explain it to you (how he/they came by it, how he/they realised it, what were the challenges and how it changed between conception and finished article), and where he/they want to go next. As a project, KG&TLW are the thrill of creation, the joy of craft and the rush of improvisation, distilled and then spread across an ever-expanding discography. They make being in a band, with your mates, traveling the world, seem like the most fun in the world ever - but their output is never self-indulgent in the sense that they're the ones having all the fun. KG&TLW is a broad tent and everyone is welcome.

Love that post, stevie! So well put.

The "broad tent" aspect -- reminds me of a recent backstage video interview where they were asked about all the pristine quality live shows that they put up on Bandcamp. Stu: "I kind of feel that...... you know, everything should just be.... free"

Free & shared -- *including* the fun and joy they feel when creating. They know how to share that, too

:) :)

i think one of my favs on b741 is "raw feel". it's a great lil essay on shared experience. and can i take just a moment to appreciate the little album-closing epilogue at the end of "daily blues"?

Thanks for flying
We've been your pilots
Lukey, Joe, Cookie, Amby, Cavs, Stuey
We couldn't tell ya what the local time is
But the weather's fine out
Get on your horse and ride out

*neiiigghhhhh*

they're horse girls!!!!

only those dudes could pull off a joyous moment like:

I'm being a silly
I'm being a silly billy
I'm being a silly
I'm being a silly billy
I'm being a silly
I'm being a silly billy
I'm being a silly
Silly billy (whoo!)

love that section, especially since i call my cat "silly billy" all the time

and can i take just a moment to appreciate the little album-closing epilogue at the end of "daily blues"?

That little outro rules. So much

Also "raw feel" just grooves right in to the top ranks of rockingest, swangingest songs in 7/8...

Some of these band grooves they hit throughout Phantom Island sound like fields of wildflowers

👍👍

“i'm being a silly
I'm being a silly billy
I'm being a silly
I'm being a silly billy
I'm being a silly
I'm being a silly billy
I'm being a silly
Silly billy (whoo!)”

i feel like phish would do this but not have the woo, and add a fucking tweezer or something and it would suck.

Where there's a woo there's a way.

hahaha otm

the one-two-three of "phantom island" "deadstick" and "lonely cosmos" is unreal. i listened to all of b741 - love it, great album - but then "phantom island" came on and i just think it's a next-level achievement for them. the orchestration is so kaleidoscopic and expressive. the songwriting is a little more sophisticated and mysterious i think? it's a real dream world, so evocative, each little section is more colorful than the equivalent on the more guitar-focused b741. i don't know it just takes me away, love it so much. a little less bloozemodica too fwiw :).

it's still pretty weird and prog and but there's a 70s am gold vibe to it, like the carpenters or something lol. kind of a quiet dreamy serenity to it. god i love "pansych". the last half of this builds to such cathartic peaks and valleys. still get teary here and there. something about them writing these eternal paeans to their kids / partners keeps striking the raw chord of a recent breakup, a friendly one, overall just the melancholy of change but the knowledge that love sustains.

Ha i heard phantom island before B741 and i like it enough, need more listens tho to appreciate

the guitar and piano section that opens "sea of doubt" just hits all my buttons - something so classic-sounding about it, like it's a rolling stones song from exile or something - i mean it doesn't really sound like that at all, less rock and more jam, but yeah, kind of a similar vibe, like the start of vu's "sweet jane" or something - like, we're in for a real treat here. "silent spirit" used to just kind of float by me but it's slowly burned its way into my heart. and then "grow wings and fly" which is probably my favorite song of the year at this point.

Some of these band grooves they hit throughout Phantom Island sound like fields of wildflowers

ya i did have ‘is this like, meant to be exile’ actual thoughts! dunno more listenin to be did

haha hey that's cool, yeah it has a similar expansive feel to it imo although i don't think i've ever heard orchestrations on this level from the rolling stones tbh!

and to be clear, it's a pretty full orchestra, not just strings - we have brass and woodwinds and some bluesy / funky sax in "eternal return" that reminds me a little of bobby keys!

a fomies song colossus 1 came up in my randoms and i didn’t know who or what it was offhand, but that is cool to me, not gizzcore or whatever, just them on a thing. i need more listens there too. you know when you’ve thrown a ton of new on yr list and go random and feel a little lost as there is no sequencing. woozy brained.

i just got back from a solo trip to capitol reef national park, did a lot of trail running and took along flight b741, phantom island and butterfly 3000 and readers, not only did i not grow tired of them, they somehow kept sounding better the more i listened to them. flight b741 in particular is made for going fast on a trail ("le risque" anyone? i mean if that doesn't get you flying along i don't know what would). i love butterfly but it's a little more interior and .. you can hear the youth - they still have a lot of development in front of them. it sounds a little like the past to me. i'm ever more convinced that phantom island is their masterpiece tbqh. BUT during this, my summer of gizz, i still have approximately 24 more albums to check out, including the silver cord, which is up next for august.

i haven't loved a band like this since i can't remember when. it's really nice being a 43 year old weirdo and having an unexpected and unexpectedly mesmerizing musical grail drop into your lap - affirmation of some things you're personally experiencing from exceptionally gifted musicians across the world and 20 years younger than you.

i really have enjoyed phantom island a lot. even the one that sounds just like the Osmonds.

The Silver Cord is very unlikely to disappoint on grounds of quality, though how you'll take to its whirlpool of synth and patient exploration may be another matter, Map

Gizzard are excellent running music, aren't they? Butterfly 3000 is also a go-to running pick for me. The Silver Cord works best with bike rides (I find) -- maybe a matter of speed and/or me not being a marathoner

just put it on for the first time and I'm enjoying the shit outta it. after three tracks I think it might be my new favorite

they're kind of the anti-Zappa, while Zappa thought he was above everything which made his genre pastiches sound stupid and exhausting these guys don't think they're beneath anything. like they don't think of music that way. they understand what's good about everything.

otm frogbs, and that's also why their Beastie Boy rap songs RULE

welcome to phantom island fan club frogbs

yeah i love "sadie sorceress" from omnium gatherum! i remember the first time i heard it i was like ... i don't know haha. but it's a boast track about a certain kind of badass woman haha, how can you not love it. they clearly do.

and hunt3r, osmonds otm! i've also been hearing a lot of floyd on phantom island. i mean maybe that's obvious, i don't know. that kind of mellow whooshing feeling you get on parts of dark side of the moon. i tell you what the orchestra arrangements just don't quit. and the bongos here and there. vibe is definitely somewhere on the beach. but maybe, like, past the cliffs at the end of the beach, you know? haha.

lotta Moody Blues on it too, like Lost Chord/Threshold era. that's another thing you have to commit to 100% to pull off right and they definitely do

haha i'm going to have to listen to those.

vibe is definitely somewhere on the beach. but maybe, like, past the cliffs at the end of the beach, you know? haha.

Map, write more about your favorite albums, I'll listen to them all

you're very sweet, and you too. i'm stubborn when it comes to actually listening to new things - i have to wait for the right internal conditions - but reading interesting things about new music here on ilm makes it possible. a bit like planting a seed and waiting for it to sprout. many seeds from reading your posts!

seconding TheNuNuNu -- map I have been getting a real kick out of following your enthusiasm for Phantom Island and this recent run of Gizz records. I'm going to see them in less than a week so it's just getting me more and more amped

glad to hear that! i'm more than a little jealous and i hope you report back in scintillating detail here :)

will do!

this part on "sad pilot" always hits

I'll just keep on winging it (wing it)
There's always blue skies ahead (blue skies)
But I'll just keep on winging it (wing it)
Gotta keep it all up in the air
Keep my chin up (chin up) fly high (fly high)
Zenith (zenith) ascent (ascent)
I'll just keep on winging it (wing it)
Gotta keep it all up in the air

Listening to the new album this afternoon, a number of lyrical refs to lost fathers popped out at me, and I'm wondering how much of that is Amby reflecting on the passing of his own dad. It's a them on the recent album he did with Jay Taylor, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLR4hCIHl3c

Stevie, innaresting, gonna check out that track and likely the whole album

Map otm, that part is massive. I got into the album during a deeply frustrating month and so the other part that always gave me a thrill and also, given the joyful defiance they deliver the lines with, a boost was:

I'm blue daily
I'm blue daily
I'm blue daily
and also nightly!

I'm blue daily
I'm blue daily
I'm blue daily
and quite rightly!

Looks like they've pulled all of their music off Spotify.

woo!

good for them. streaming sucks.

It's on Qobuz, and I've also been encouraged to finally take a dip, really enjoying the motorik qualities of Butterfly 3000 rn.

"innaresting" otm about that track stevie. i think the father-son stuff is part of what i'm picking up from phantom island that hits me so hard in the emotions.

"daily blues" sounded better than ever on a run this morning. the mid-section triple time riff that comes in at 1:54 is \m/.

All for them pulling from Spotify, all I'd ask for next is CD versions of those 2022-2023 albums.

jordan what or who encouraged you?

Listening to the Tape Notes podcast going through the stems of KG/LW cracked the door, then this thread got me to listen to the newest one (which is great).

I don't think I'll ever be a superfan but I do respect & enjoy them now. Awhile ago I read an interview (Tape Op I think) talking about their microtonal period, sounded cool but I bounced off the record.

omg i love the glimpses of the notation in this video for "catching smoke"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L3-HOdMeuM

oh shit, they just left Spotify. that was the easiest way to listen to them.

“We just removed our music from the platform. Can we put pressure on these Dr. Evil tech bros to do better?”

Pointedly, the band put a musical backing behind their announcement: Bob Dylan’s Masters of War, an anti-war protest song that declares “you that build the death planes … I just want you to know I can see through your masks”.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/26/king-gizzard-and-the-lizard-wizard-join-spotify-exodus-over-arms-industry-link-ntwnfb#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20don't%20want%20our,tied%20to%20AI%20battle%20tech.%E2%80%9D

good for them. I'm even more of a fan now

That's about 10% of Spotify instantly gone.

lol

they were great in philly last night. there wasn't much stage banter, and no mention of spotify. they came out and jammed a tiny bit while the orchestra took their seats behind them, at the back of the stage, and then proceeded to do the entire new album straight through. the orchestra left for a while after the first set, and even when periodically they'd return, the rest of the show was like seeing the Oh Sees. it was pretty surreal to have that kind of spastic garage prog going on at a place that seats like 15,000 people

Wow I had no idea they had that kind of draw to play such a big place

was the place full?

pavilion seating was sold out. there were still lawn tickets available at show time

it's not too hard to imagine people spending summers following them and their bottomless song catalog around in the not too distant future

I think people already do that, tbh. There is SO MUCH overlap with the jam band crowd right now, talked to several people at Phish last weekend who've been chasing King Gizz shows.

In my completely unscientific survey, King Gizz merch was ever present at the 3 Phish shows I attended. Basically the popularity of t-shirts was:

Phish > Dead-related >> King Gizz > Billy Strings >>>>> Goose, Sturgill Simpson, other jam bands

xp fuck i'd do it, but to be a deadhead in 2025 you gotta be richer than you used to be.

i can't afford a colorado trip to field of vision (unless the bonus i'm supposed to get tomorrow is substantial) so i treated myself to the dragon tee and phantom island on lp instead.

Nice consolation prize, tbh.

I don't know how people follow bands like that in 2025 tbrr, I mean it was expensive enough for the three nights I did of Phish and I slept in my own bed each night!

I’ll have to read through this thread sometime soon to get a primer on what I might like by these guys

Amby sings it, so I dunno for sure I'm parsing them right, but I just adore those closing lines from 'Grow Wings And Fly':

I'm shedding my skin like a snake slithering
You gotta stop the overwhelming self-doubt
Catch me dancing in the summer rain with my tongue out

The whole skin-shedding theme just seems Gizzard in a nutshell, with their constant shape-shifting. And "dancing in the summer rain with my tongue out" is Stu all over, so many pix of him with his tongue out onstage, yelping and being the dork.

yeah that part gets my hands up in the air wherever i happen to be.

i finally peeped all the lyrics to phantom island on the kglw fan site and they're even better than i realized. it's pretty funny that i heard 'june twenty-two, what i wouldn't do for a meal with you' as 'june twenty-two, what i wouldn't do for a feel with you.' i first heard that song on june 20 and it had been about a month since my break-up haha.

Case in point:
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/606da90512c0f15995c94ac0/30817164-f42b-4905-a1bc-1d371116fce1/Gizz1.jpeg?format=1500w

xp

"silent spirit" on phantom island was kind of a sleeper track for me, now it's one of my favorites. love the drum machine and the muted horns. and the guitar solo leaves me kinda speechless. not to mention the mystical lyrics, worth posting in full (idk they're very moving to me):

[Stu Mackenzie]
Yeah, yeah, yeah...
And to my loved ones, who navigate the current of life and who, occasionally or regularly, feel rudderless in the river:

[Joey Walker]
In this long night, there is no end
Deep dominion
Father be my friend
I stand on the shoulders of mothers long dead
Singing their stories

[Stu Mackenzie]
Life is but an eddy
So be a leaf in a stream
Eternally we return to cycle through the song we learnt

[Ambrose Kenny-Smith]
I would say don't be a musician, my son
Be a doctor, lawyer, or a stand up citizen
People on the street would stop and ask me if I'm proud
But I'm not proud
You did it yourself; I wasn't around

[Joey Walker]
But time is pregnant with the past
With the knowledge that they lost
Time is eating its last meal
If they listened, could they heal?

[Stu Mackenzie]
Yeah, yeah, yeah...
And though I cannot hold you, you will know my presence by virtue of the wind
You know your daddy never knew what he was doing
It's all love
I love you

[Ambrose Kenny-Smith]
I am wind
I am rain
I am photon
I am wave
I am wind
I am rain
I am photon
I am wave
I am love
Trauma pain
Reincarnate hurricane
I have sinned
Fanned the flames
Knocking on the pearly gates

also love stu's conversation with the moon on "aerodynamic" and the episodic nature of "spacesick", very elegantly structured song imo.

also lots of the group / background vocals popping out for me lately. it's a great vocal record! there's that great bit with the wobbly vocals in "eternal return" at 1:37. and when the bg vocals first come in on "spacesick" - wow! very beatles via beach boys. the album is super hooky everywhere, maybe that's just because i've listened to it a million times now lol.

Thanks for the full Silent Spirit, Map. Stu's bits on that, good god.

I never get much music in, summers, but I can't wait to have listened to Phantom Island enough to be noticing all the details Map is noticing.

Listening to the new album this afternoon, a number of lyrical refs to lost fathers popped out at me, and I'm wondering how much of that is Amby reflecting on the passing of his own dad. It's a them on the recent album he did with Jay Taylor, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLR4hCIHl3c

Finally followed up with this, it's beautiful! So yeah, need the whole album.

For the most part I haven't figured out which Gizz singer is singing at any given moment, it's just this circling chorus of great singers. Love hearing this beloved voice in the lead

isn’t one if them the singer in murlocs? i havent listened in ages but i got them somewhere

like does slotify link listeners to kg over to side bands like that? i mean they must right

Murlocs is Ambrose’s band. They’re really good!

i finally listened to the metal album this morning. immediate favorite.

i think what happened is that silver cord kinda lost me. i should love it because it's like them doing a modular synth ashra/kraftwerk opus is perfect on paper. but in execution i don't think it's as good as what came before and after. there's some great stuff on there - idk i'm gonna give it some time, i'll probably fall in love with it eventually.

dear raymond cummings, the sonic and thematic variety this band is capable of is very wide indeed, but just based on the most general quality of product, wow factor and essential gizzness therein, and favoring material from the last 5 years because it's where i came on board, i would suggest trying:

"the dripping tap" from omnium gatherum
"catching smoke" from butterfly 3000
"mycelium" from ice, death etc
"supercell" from petrodragonic apocalypse
"grow wings and fly" from phantom island

i think it's safe to say if you don't like or love at least 3 from that list this band probably isn't for you.

It's so funny, not throwing shade at your list at all (it's a good one!) and you do address it directly, but so funny to realize that there were 17 whole albums before even the earliest entry on your list!

Others I might add from earlier in their career:

"Rattlesnake" from Flying Microtonal Banana
"Head On/Pill" from Float Along - Fill Your Lings
"The Bitter Boogie" from Paper Mache Dream Balloon
"Evil Death Roll" from Nonagon Infinity
"Cellophone" from I'm in Your Mind Fuzz
"Cyboogie" from Fishing for Fishies
"Mars for the Rich" from Infest the Rats' Nest

Ha, I thought the same thing. I'm probably always going to think of the run of albums that you pulled these from as their "classic" period.

Map, I turned your list into a playlist (called “Map’s King Gizzard Test Playlist”) in Apple Music, and will be rocking that on the bus ride home! Will report back.

looking forward to hearing what you think :)

Mind Fuzz is a really great record, would love to hear a few more like that

One song deep so far, but man, it’s one great song:

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/maps-king-gizzard-test-playlist/pl.u-55D6zoyF8Lm4GDW

😎

the end of "le risque" has me lip-syncing like a maniac every time:

Where softer souls do sleep
In the hush of morning's glow
I rest not, I cannot
I just go
The risk, my muse
For its focus I depend
Nosedive into the ocean
Do dangerous shit and transcend
This world,
(this world)
it spins too slow
Its tempo paints my world in grey
My heart cannot beat fast enough
The risk is technicolour paint
One life,
(one life)
one chance
(one chance)
Clench the moment in your hand
Adrenaline, my dearest friend, it's me and you until the end!

then i hear *that riff* from "flight b741" come in. great song, starts bright then gets spacy and elegaic. "what if we fall out of the sky, is there even air to hold us" is .. well i've heard that statement a fair amount and thought it was dumb and cliche, but somehow it hits me right in the heart sung like that. listening to flight b741 is like a little defib shock or something when i'm feeling kind of blah or down. something very comforting about it.

"rats in the sky" was a sleeper track for me but whee it's great, so streamlined and catchy. "antarctica" still blows me away ... a frontier western song about moving to antarctica sung in a way that isn't really satirical (still some bite to it of course) ("i wanna feel the prospects on my face again"). "raw feel" and "field of vision" are perfect. the only thing i don't absolutely love is "hog calling contest" but, you know, i'll allow it because it sure works well in the middle of this album.

anyone at the forest hills show?

i love reading enthusiastic bandcamp comments

camoclonetrooper Never have I experienced such an immediate, intense, and visceral connection with an album from a band I’ve only just discovered 24 hours ago. Where have you been all my life? Favorite track: Raw Feel.
gizzardlizzard thumbnail
gizzardlizzard I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I do. I listen to it nearly on a daily basis since it came out. Songs like Antarctica, Raw Feel und especially Flight B741 have a special place in my heart. Favorite track: Flight b741.
phoenix128zx thumbnail
phoenix128zx It's the most energic thing I've ever heard in the last 10 years. The lyrics are so good!! Favorite track: Daily Blues.
4n0ncr4 thumbnail
4n0ncr4 Just love the lyrics and guitars, great song, great album Favorite track: Flight b741.
DIMM4_ thumbnail
DIMM4_ This album makes me want to hoot and holler, that is the best way to describe it. Favorite track: Antarctica.
TurboFunder thumbnail
TurboFunder I can't pick a favorite song here. I cannot believe they're released their most American sounding album while touring America. Hyped to see them live every chance I get.
Actually, I can! Favorite track is Mira- no, Sad Pi- wait no it's Field of- know what, never mind.
Carsten Pieper thumbnail
Carsten Pieper I have barely scratched the surface of the absurdly large KG&tLW catalogue, but every time I checked in on them I enjoyed my stay ;-)

So, this, their latest studio offering, is their "fun album", some kind of glam-rocky cosmic Americana stuff that splendidly passes the afternoon in the autumn sun. Big fun, indeed! Favorite track: Le Risque.
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potaytoes At first I wasn’t convinced with this album.
Then I listened again. And again. And again and again and again.
It’s a pretty damn good album.
Plus, it lets me share the blessing that is KG&tLW with family who aren’t quite a fan of experimental kraut and psych rock Favorite track: Flight b741.
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cassie98 Simply, this album helps me enjoy life more! Like sunshine on a cloudy day... <3 Favorite track: Le Risque.

i've been slowly going through their whole catalogue again and i think ice, death, etc. is their best right now

Listened to their Chicago 2024 show on Bandcamp last night, gott damn that is a facenelter: from a suite of interlocking Nonagon fragments, to the lion's share of Petrodragonic, to a hammering psychedelic techno jams on Silver Cord's Moroderesque bangers, to a closing Head On/Pill that's almost equal to the SF 2016 version.

They're playing tonight at Ravinia, which is one of the worst places to see a show, since if you're not in a pavillion seat and on the lawn you literally can't see the show.

Yeah, that's kind of a head-scratcher.

i've been slowly going through their whole catalogue again and i think ice, death, etc. is their best right now

― ufo, Wednesday, August 6, 2025 12:09 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

curious to hear why you think that! i love the sound of it. i think gizz output for at least the last 5 years, in one sense, can be understood as a continuous throughline documenting an evolving relationship to earth. that in large part the albums represent places on a journey toward understanding the human relationship with earth, applying lots of imagery to it, trying to make sense of it, trying to find some peace with it. ice, death, planets, etc., to me, is this very cosmic, epistemological thing. at the same time, it's about bodies and decay. it attempts - i think successfully - to link our bodies to the body of the earth and to find desire, mortality, and change or the cycle of decay and renewal there. which all sounds really heady, but the lyrics are concrete enough and the imagery, well, imagined well enough that it all works and sounds gorgeous. i think "hell's itch" is sort of the precis of the album.

as far as how their other recent albums relate to the earth, i went back to changes and kinda stalled out on that first track. lyrics are very angry about climate change. i think at some point, around flight b741 they sort of went through this transformation where the beauty of the present moment takes over from larger questions of "our place on earth and in the universe" or "what the fuck are we doing to the planet." i think their most successful attempt to capture what the spirit or vibe of human-caused climate change feels like is on the metal album, petrodragonic. somehow by applying metal to it and devoting an entire album to the subject they give something that lots of people don't really want to think about a lot of life and even generosity. it's quite an achievement imo.

i'm honestly really bummed i'm missing the buena vista thing. i keep imagining myself dancing like a crazed maniac and making friends with cool hippies. i guess that's probably not what the shows are like, at least from the ilxor pov, which is probably more like: go, glance at strangers, never talk to anyone, have a drink, relax for a minute, enjoy two songs, look at the phone, think too much, go home.

they're at their best when they're at their jammiest, and ice, death... is their most realised in that regard.

Respectfully disagree! The Dripping Tap aside, oh and The Silver Cord!! -- I'm not really into Gizzard jamming. It's when they go in for traditional songcraft that I tend to melt.

But yes UFO, that does explain why Ice Death... doesn't move me, even though it postdates KG/LW

it helps that the songs on ice, death are some of their best too

i'd love an album of "the dripping tap"-esque krautrock jams. obviously a bunch of their earlier material is pretty krauty but only "head on/pill" really goes for the extended krautrock jam which is why it's such an early highlight

but also like, if they played i'm in your mind fuzz in full live and put that out as a live album that'd be a huge improvement. it's a decent album but suffers from being so lo-fi and low energy compared to how they jam on those songs live these days

Quarters kind of gets into a krautrock zone at a few points, iirc.

But yeah, a full album building off "The Dripping Tap" would be incredible.

quarters was just a dry run for ice death, like it's fine but they've gotten so much better at what they were doing there since then

top 5 albums is something like
ice, death...
laminated denim
nonagon infinity
k.g.
phantom island

here's thoughts on every album from float along onwards. i'd heard about 1/3 of these before going through them all in the last few weeks. i'll get around to their first few that no one seems to care much about eventually. overall they're pretty inconsistent, but even most of their weaker albums have at least something going for them (even if i'm pretty harsh on them here). their best moments are incredible and their live bootlegs are fantastic. 2022 was clearly their best year: "the dripping tap" + ice, death... + laminated denim is an incredible 2 hours to put out in a single year.

float along - fill your lungs: the bookends ("head on/pill" and the title track) which make up half the album are fantastic psych jams but the rest is completely forgettable

oddments: better lo-fi psych-pop than the bad half of float along but nothing special at all beyond "vegemite" which is a gem

i'm in your mind fuzz: building upon the motorik sound of "head on/pill" but opting for suites of short songs rather than extended jams. it's pretty good but the lo-fi production doesn't really do it justice and live versions of these songs blow this out of the water

quarters!: four extended jams of the chill noodle-y psych variety. kinda gives the sense that they're long for the sake of being long, they weren't as good at this sort of noodling as they are now. "the river" has become a live staple for a reason but there's significantly better versions than the one here, and though "god is in the rhythm" has a gorgeous melody they've never done it live

paper mache dream balloon: mostly acoustic psych-pop, some of it's pretty decent but the songwriting's still relatively slight overall. i'd like to hear them revisit this sound

nonagon infinity: album-length motorik garage-psych suite, about two/thirds great. there's still a bit of a gap between it & their live peformances even if they've closed that a fair bit. probably their strongest album from their earlier career

flying microtonal banana: some great microtonal krautrock tracks and some weaker material that doesn't have a motorik groove. decent enough overall

murder of the universe: a nonagon infinity retread except heavier and with a lot of spoken word narration. weirdly underwhelming, it's not quite good enough to even be 'more of the same' in a positive way, it just feels uninspired

sketches of brunswick east: half-baked psych-pop with some attempts at jazzier material that they don't really have the chops to pull off. unfortunately called "sketches" for a reason, it's very slight.

polygondwanaland: the sort of prog that's heavy on stilted rhythms in unusual time signatures that i'm not very fond of. it's strange that they come across so awkwardly here when they've made unusual time signatures sound very natural in the past

gumboot soup: an outtakes collection - they're mostly outtakes for a reason but it's not bad or anything

fishing for fishies: an idiosyncratic take on boogie rock with a somewhat mechanical feel and many synths & woodwinds and other unexpected sounds. works better than it has any right to

infest the rats' nest: thrash metal, but thrash metal isn't a style of metal i get anything out of. to my non-metalhead ears it sounds like a competent enough pastiche but there's absolutely nothing for me here

k.g.: their best microtonal album, a surprisingly stylistically diverse psych album, all their ideas here work really well.

l.w.: k.g. part 2. not quite as strong but still pretty solid

butterfly 3000: psychedelic synth-pop. the arrangements are a bit underdeveloped but there's a few gems here

made in timeland: some synth jams they made to play during concert interludes, a curiosity at best, completely unessential

omnium gatherum: an incredibly inconsistent grab-bag that doesn't really work as an album at all but "the dripping tap" makes up a quarter of this which has to count for something. the rap tracks here are really embarrassing but more for the beats than the rapping

ice, death...: their masterpiece. suddenly they manage to successfully translate the jammier element of their live shows into an album, and end up with these jazzy, funky psych epics. crucially they get the balance just right and aren't too self-indulgent, and the songs themselves are strong. it's really everything i want out of this sort of music

laminated denim: two 15-minute krautrock jams, but on the chiller side compared to the driving intensity of "the dripping tap". one of their very best!

changes: i like what they're going for here with this jazzy, r&b-tinged sound but they're ultimately nowhere near slick enough here to really pull it off properly so it just ends up being their tame impala album. it's strange because they sure sound slick on ice, death etc. but just don't make it work well enough here

petrodragonic apocalypse: more thrash metal, this time a bit proggier. still not really for me

the silver cord: modular synth jams, but a strange sort that no one else really makes. it's got a pulse but it's largely too plodding to really be dance music - some of the better bits are when it flirts with breakbeats or housier grooves. it's decent enough but ultimately a structural failure - the short version isn't really enough as an album but the extended versions are far too much all together, with only some of them really justifying their lengths. ideally they would have sequenced it so that album just had the best version of each track and ended up with something that was a normal length

flight b741: 70s roots rock pastiche with freeform song structures where nearly every verse is different. surprisingly one of their best genre exercises, it's really energetic and just fun, even though i don't generally care much for this sort of choogle. they could probably tighten up some of these songs by editing them to just focus on each song's best verses but the freeform structures are still very endearing.

phantom island: flight b741 part 2, except leaning much more towards psych-pop and with an orchestra. definitely their best psych-pop effort, their songwriting has come a long way. it's sort of like they made an album based entirely on the idea of their satanic majesties request without actually having heard it, which is very funny, but it works surprisingly well

🤟🏽

Thanks UFO, I enjoyed that! Our tastes within the Gizzverse definitely differ (me I got nothing but love for Omnium and the long Silver Cord) but you've given me one of those pushes to spend more time with K.G./L.W. that I've been wanting, plus you've reminded me how much I like but have neglected Laminated Denim and Changes.

Plus you've put in perspective the way that these guys are probably only *now* on the cusp of their imperial era!

thanks for that rundown ufo. glad you like the last two so much. laminated denim is really good, agreed! thenununu you might like that one more than ice death .. the jamminess is more structured iirc - a mellow "dripping tap" is otm.

yeah much appreciated, I was just thinking I missed the days when every artist thread would have someone attempting an album-by-album breakdown. can't imagine anyone actually agrees on this band though. which is what makes them so impressive, I mean thrash metal isn't really my thing either but the metal guys I know say they're super legit doing it and I can't imagine that's an easy crowd to win over

oh if I can say one more thing about the new record that big whooo hoooo at the end of "Grow Wings and Fly" is such a well earned moment. I guess I have to pick up Flight b571 now I wasn't expecting this stuff to be so good

you can definitely hear that they're from the same sessions, flight b471 is a whole album of "deadstick" basically

thrash metal isn't really my thing either but the metal guys I know say they're super legit doing it and I can't imagine that's an easy crowd to win over

One of my friends is an old prog metal-head, and within a couple weeks of me sending him a link to Gila Monster, PetroDragonic became his favorite metal album of all time.

I did really like my first two listens to Laminated Denim back in the spring, Map! -- time to revisit.

Gila and Rats Nest feel like late 80s/early 90s thrash that’s still in touch w its punk and prog roots, ie And Justice For All and CoC’s Blind. The shifting rhythms underneath Gaia are sublime. Like most things they absorb into their sound, there’s no pastiche here.

yeah their metal sound is very well-developed and not pastiche at all. they definitely achieve the speed of thrash but like you're saying stevie there is a lot of prog and punk in there.

oh if I can say one more thing about the new record that big whooo hoooo at the end of "Grow Wings and Fly" is such a well earned moment. I guess I have to pick up Flight b571 now I wasn't expecting this stuff to be so good

― frogbs, Monday, August 11, 2025 5:00 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

you can definitely hear that they're from the same sessions, flight b471 is a whole album of "deadstick" basically

― ufo, Monday, August 11, 2025 5:22 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is really interesting to me, the question of how these two fully formed and self-contained albums came out of the same sessions. because if i didn't know, i would not be able to tell! they sound really different to me. i wonder where the concept of two albums came into the mix. i feel like if you're recording with an orchestra you kind of have to know what you're going for earlier rather than later haha. they have probably talked about it somewhere idk.

today i called in sick to work and went on a run in the mountains, because it's absolutely beautiful weather today. it would be such a crime to sit in front of the computer all day. the air is clear, no wildfire smoke to speak of, it's sunny without a cloud in the sky, a touch of cool hinting at fall, and even the faintest touch of red in some of the rock maple leaves, all of the grasses the buttery color that they achieve when summer is turning over. i went with flight b741 on the descent. itunes says i've listened to the album around 50 times since i added it to the library on july 4 (an appropriate day), which is kinda nuts even for me, i'm always listening to a handful of things over and over until i don't, but that is pretty maxed out. you'd think i would have burned out on it by now but idk it's like a comfortable t-shirt at this point. and when "raw feel" came on it unlocked some fresh feelings which is usually the case. at this point the album is like a place i visit where the good things in life are distilled and the bad things are swept aside.

the big "whoo hoo" at the end of "grow wings and fly" is very well-earned! a triumph over adversity and maybe a commitment to remember something important...

i ordered a vinyl copy of phantom island and played it a bit over the weekend. it sounds great. no issues with the pressing afaict. my partner finally warmed up to the band a bit listening to the lp. his take was basically that they're all over the place but overall joyful and uplifting. agreed.

polygondwanaland: the sort of prog that's heavy on stilted rhythms in unusual time signatures that i'm not very fond of. it's strange that they come across so awkwardly here when they've made unusual time signatures sound very natural in the past

― ufo, Sunday, August 10, 2025 9:30 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

ah see one of the things I love about King Gizzard is that they write in 5/4 more often than practically any band i can think of, even in prog/art rock circles, the first 2 tracks on Polygondwanaland have some great 5/4 ("The River," "Superposition," "Plastic Boogie" and "Black Hot Soup" being some other 5/4 highlights on other albums).

their prog metal makes me wish they’d do some choral hymnal sounding vox, sorta like HNIA did on Patterns of Light. that hnia album remains outside of my familiarity knowledge zone but i always dig on how it does shit.

gizzard should work on vox variety generally, they need more voices

haha what do you mean by that exactly? they have three different singers taking lead on one song all the time! those three singers, stu joey and ambrose, have quite different ranges and timbres. and they all sing bg vocals everywhere. i hear them trying all sorts of new things vocally on both flight b741 and phantom island. there's the funkadelic / beach boys group vocal thing. stu is finding all sorts of new drama in his voice. the woo is all over everything still but i love it, i think he brings it when it's called for and it doesn't ever feel like a gimmick. vocally they are committed.

i think the other part of phantom island that feels very well-earned and just pitch-perfect is the end of "sea of doubt." stu does those really high, descending coos. it's such a release into a beautiful sense of peace. i do think that they're a religious band in a sense, something close to buddhism, but .. very authentic, grounded. spiritual not religious haha. open to whatever it is that they're facing now. there's that line in "field of vision," "we don't need no religion." but i do think that a big part of their appeal isn't just the music on its own (though that's surely key to the draw) but the lyrics that join together with it.

"field of vision" will be streaming live on youtube :] :]

i think of stu and ambrose and theyre fine but ha if you can make microtonal instruments you can do more tightly arranged vocals on one. i mean i’m a garage psych fan i dont need much, but if youre gonna amaze prog style do it all around i guess

weakest of complaints, i know. If they do square dance i want legendary fiddle and the best calling ever.

funny thing about Polygondwanaland to me is that a lot of what I read about it praises the shit outta "Crumbling Castle" while saying the shorter tracks were fine but didn't quite live up to it...first time I listened was on vinyl and to me it came off like four 10 minute tracks each with multiple sections. was not expecting to see ten on the tracklist.

there is something about the band that feels culturally very australian and i don't know if i'd be able to explain it without saying something silly/stereotypical/glib, but it just reminds me of people i met the one time i spent a week in australia 15+ years ago -- like if there was a super prolific american band mining similar influences, i feel like they'd be a little more uptight and muso in their musicianship or more self-aggrandizing in their public persona, and the gentle surfer dude whimsy of king gizzard's vocals really goes along with that.

weakest of complaints, i know. If they do square dance i want legendary fiddle and the best calling ever.

― hello we are the tik tok data recruitment center (Hunt3r), Monday, August 11, 2025 11:55 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

haha, you demand excellence! i get it though, more range would be cool.

they are at a perfect sweet spot between "ambitious, structured, complex" and "casual, loose, instinctual" for me. i will say one area that i kind of wish was more mind-blowing was some of the guitar soloing. it can feel a little noodly to me sometimes. i've warmed up to it, but part of me wishes they had a neil young-caliber player or something. someone a little more in that tradition of noise and feedback. but maybe that's a little over-represented in indie rock idk. i have appreciation for the soloing. i think that "gentle surfer dude whimsy" some dude mentions comes through it.

this is really interesting to me, the question of how these two fully formed and self-contained albums came out of the same sessions. because if i didn't know, i would not be able to tell! they sound really different to me. i wonder where the concept of two albums came into the mix. i feel like if you're recording with an orchestra you kind of have to know what you're going for earlier rather than later haha. they have probably talked about it somewhere idk.

they talk about it in these interviews:

https://www.spin.com/2025/06/king-gizzard-phantom-island-tour/
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2025-08-08/king-gizzard-at-the-bowl

it sounds like they went into the studio intending to make a roots rock album, ended up with 20 songs and weren't sure what to do with all of them, but they'd been thinking playing with an orchestra would be interesting so they decided to commit to that and overdub an orchestra onto the less rootsy half of the tracks they had. when splitting up tracks between the projects, they originally thought "deadstick" would make the most sense on flight b741 but the guy they hired for the orchestral arrangements correctly thought it'd work great with an orchestra. they don't talk about if they considered it but i think "mirage city" could easily have fit on phantom island

ah see one of the things I love about King Gizzard is that they write in 5/4 more often than practically any band i can think of

i'm not opposed to 5/4 but i like it when unusual time signatures are made to feel natural and fluid (like on "the river" which is great!), rather than the more stilted approach on polygondwanaland and a lot of other prog which is not really to my taste

re: vocals, their vocal arrangements on the last two albums were a big step up so i don't really doubt they'll do more there in the future

Ha i never listened to petrodragonix til just now, i’m enjoying it quite a bit, sorta palate cleansing. if it’s ever false metal I wouldnt know anyway, not my usual dept. you cant really sleep on nothin i guess.

there is something about the band that feels culturally very australian and i don't know if i'd be able to explain it without saying something silly/stereotypical/glib, but it just reminds me of people i met the one time i spent a week in australia 15+ years ago -- like if there was a super prolific american band mining similar influences, i feel like they'd be a little more uptight and muso in their musicianship or more self-aggrandizing in their public persona, and the gentle surfer dude whimsy of king gizzard's vocals really goes along with that.

― some dude, Monday, August 11, 2025 6:09 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

big part of the appeal, they were absolutely the band that looked like they were having the most fun on stage out of everyone I've seen. and I've seen Andrew W.K.

i literally just became of giz’s festival or whatever in bueny, and i consider the collegiates a sacred-ass place from my experiences there. if i’d known? maybe i’d have payed up to go. to any the rest of yas i envy you just to go there.

i weird bike-guy way, a notable exteme race of ultra and of bilepacking, the Colorado Trail Race (Durango-Denverish stip as little as you can) will hit bueny just before and as giz goes off. they should recognize, i’d tell giz if i could,

lol impaired typing. “in a weird…” “extreme,” and” bikepacking,” etc.

i hope in the future that ambrose's sax playing gets good enough that they can start having him play cool sax solos rather than the current occasional noodling, just because that would be a neat thing to add to their sound

thats what's so cool about this band, of course they can do a ton of things, they've got 7 talented and adventurous musicians in the band (who all contribute to the writing if I understand correctly?), even better it's been the same 7 guys the whole time, what other group has a dynamic like that? I dunno if you could make stuff this good this fast if you had guys dropping in and out of the band all the time, also don't know how you could sell "hey uh lets try a jammy synth record" to the guys who signed up for the metal stuff

their second drummer quit in 2020 but that seems to have ultimately been for the better as they didn't really explore the possibilities of double drumming much and it's given their remaining drummer more room to play freely

songwriting credits vary a bit - stu is very much the main songwriter but the others all contribute here & there (which often goes along with when they have a lead vocal part) and a lot of their albums have a song written entirely by one of the others. most of their albums from ice, death... onwards are credited to most or all of the band as their creative process is now centred around constructing songs out of their jams

Writing songs that way, let alone *good* songs, no doubt *demands* they play and jam all the time, to stay that tight and keep the ideas coming. Whenever Ian MacKaye is asked about a hypothetical Fugazi reunion, he always says the biggest sticking point is that they live in different places, and the only reason they were able to write and play like they did is because they were playing music together several hours a day, most days of the week.

ahh - read their page wrong - still impressive to hold a lineup like that for so long

The first time I interviewed em, for MOJO back in 2020, Stu was very clear that what holds the whole thing together is their friendship - that what they love most about Gizz is that it enables them all to hang together for huge amounts of time and do what they love to do. I've interviewed them a bunch since then, and they all say this enough that it's clearly not just a PR spin.

Anyway, I also remember, around the time of Omnium, several of the band half-jokingly referring to how the rap tracks felt like they might be a mistake they'd never live down, or a joke too far. But was listening to the Bulgaria show in the car earlier, and I'm sorry, this fucking bangs. It's not hip-hop. I don't know what it is. It's evolved into something... else. It's Gizzard music. It is mighty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be7n-jLj06s

yeah i concur. electrifying \m/

i literally just became of giz’s festival or whatever in bueny, and i consider the collegiates a sacred-ass place from my experiences there. if i’d known? maybe i’d have payed up to go. to any the rest of yas i envy you just to go there.

yeah absolutely, being there in that valley would have been a big part of the appeal. i drove through there on my way to colorado springs one summer when i was maybe 19 or 20. i had a very vivid dream set in that valley not long afterward that has stayed with me ever since. i sure hope they do it again.

"the grim reaper" doesn't work at all but it's at least fascinatingly confused. it's unfortunately not at the point where it's its own weird thing in a good way

also just makes me think of Hey hip-hop nerds. What kind-of hip-hop is this?

i went through their earliest material so here's some thoughts:

teenage gizzard: a compilation of their very earliest eps & singles + one previously unreleased song from that period. largely hookless surf-tinged garage rock that sounds like it was recorded on a phone from the next room over. pretty unusual to hear a band this early on

willoughby's beach ep: more early surf-tinged garage rock but the production & songwriting are already big improvements, there's some actual tunes. there's still not really anything here particularly worthwhile but they were improving quickly at least. "black tooth" is probably the best track

12 bar bruise: their debut album, more lo-fi garage rock. still nothing special but some of this actually holds up well enough - "muckraker" and "sea of trees" are both solid tunes

eyes like the sky: a spaghetti western soundtrack, as performed by a garage rock band, with a story written & narrated by ambrose's dad (attempting an american accent), who fronted number of australian blues/country rock bands in the 70s. they successfully capture the spaghetti western sound they're after but there's really not much to the story at all, it's just a very strange project. a curiosity at best

The Grim Reaper is fantastic! Stu's flute, come on!

To each their own, of course. But Grim Reaper might be Top 3 Omnium.....

That's quite a question actually.

Everyone! Five favorite songs on Omnium Gatherum! Ranked! Right now! Go go go

ooo great question

the dripping tap
gaia
persistence
evilest man
red smoke

i'm not as familiar with the last half of this album as i should be.

honestly what happened with omnium for me is that "the dripping tap" blew me away and as for the rest, about half of it stuck and half of it didn't. i'm not normally into like bedroom funk and some of this album has that vibe tbh. i really like "ambergis," "candles," "magenta mountain," "sadie sorceress" and maybe one or two others too. i think i'd actually rank "persistence" over "gaia" - i just adore that song. it's the first gizz track with like high octane inspirational lyrics i heard and i just love it when they do that now. in general i'm not mad they traded the bedroom funk in for full-on 70s rock grandeur but maybe they'll do a super funky "rap" album next lol. idk they're already gifted lyricists and i think they are honest fans of some hip hop and it just happens and like i'm here for it i don't even think twice. is this how cults break down new recruits? could be.