In a problem to call the undisputed overlords of recent psych rock, two heavyweight contenders spring to thoughts – Osees and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. Each bands have rather a lot in frequent: their resistance to mentioned definition, for starters, together with their omnivorous musical appetites and protean imaginative and prescient. Additionally they share a ferocious work ethic, releasing an avalanche of information in what looks as if an pressing and countless inventive venting.
It’s arduous to not boggle at King Gizzard’s stats. This month the Melbourne sextet launch three albums of latest materials, bringing 2022’s tally to 5. To date. Since their 2012 debut, they’ve averaged 2.3 albums per yr, going into overdrive (once more with 5) in 2017. It’s the sort of fee that appears diarrhoeic, a probable signal of bloated creativity and reluctant self-editing, however KG have been scratching their expressive itch in more and more creative methods since 2012’s 12 Bar Bruise. As introductions go, it’s enjoyable if hardly authentic – a rough-necked mixture of ramalama punk, bluesy storage rock, surf rock and US alt.rock that’s mild years away from the place they’re now.
The next yr’s Float Alongside – Fill Your Lungs noticed their first dabblings in psychedelia, however they swiftly moved on to stretch that descriptor by embracing kosmische (by way of Neu!, an ever current information), sci-fi steel, Afro-funk, thrash, prog, ’70s heavy rock and jazz, additionally guided by their curiosity down aspect roads of Tropicalia, Turkish psych people and Ghanaian highlife. For all of the style switching, although, there are constants: KG’s grip on melody is steadfast and guaranteed, whereas their vividly poetic lyrics (usually a bunch effort) deal with critical topics – environmental crises, issues about humanity’s survival and the facility of expertise. Physique horror has a spot, too. All of which has formed a singular world thick with metatextual references and symbology – whether or not fan-interpreted or supposed, it’s arduous to say – dubbed “the Gizzverse”.
Their newest splurge isn’t a trilogy within the conceptual sense, however every album has been formed by a structural puzzle of the band’s personal devising. It’s one thing they’ve achieved earlier than: Quarters! is made up of 4 sections, every 10 minutes and 10 seconds lengthy; Nonagon Infinity performs as an countless loop; and on Flying Microtonal Banana all devices use quarter-tone tuning. These are video games of talent that sharpen KG’s creative edge.
First off the blocks is Ice, Loss of life, Planets…, by which all seven modes of the key scale are represented, the preliminary letters of the phrases within the title appearing as a mnemonic for these modes. The tracks have been constructed from the bottom up within the studio over seven days
(numerology geek alert) of jamming, with members enjoying for 45 minutes after which switching devices to go once more. Jams that handed muster have been then edited into songs by guitarist/producer Stu Mackenzie and overdubbed with flute, organ and further guitar. The result’s an excellent, dizzy riot with no direct precursor, although the enjoyable KG had recording “The Dripping Faucet”, the 18-minute motorik jam that opens this April’s Omnium Gatherum, was the spur. It carouses from the sweetly meandering pop of “Mycelium”, with its high notes of Vampire Weekend, and “Magma”’s lysergically groovy outflow of Can and Flower Travellin’ Band, to the pastoral psych funk of “Iron Lung”, with its flute trills and sudden wah-wah guitar vamps. “Lava” is the standout in a very virtuosic set, KG’s unerring inside logic main them from Soiled Three-aligned experimental blues, by way of candy, psychedelic pop and a high-speed prog wig-out to an outro of cosmic Clavinet shimmering.
Laminated Denim is a really totally different beast. Like Ice, Loss of life, Planets…, it’s constructed from jams however is basically digital and performs to a clock – two tracks of exactly quarter-hour every. Time accommodates KG structurally, however not creatively: “The Land Earlier than Timeland” is a lyrical exercise of delicate intricacy, pegged to a lightweight motorik groove over which post-rock/jazzy guitars are interlaced in round patterns, the entire retreating on the shut by way of choral vocals and speeding synths. “Hypertension” is each bit as mild on its ft and the conversational enjoying between the Gizzards is equally spectacular, nevertheless it takes extra of a pastoral-prog path, with staccato guitar vamps and Mackenzie’s exultant whoops marking switches in power and path. The report’s title is an anagram of Made In Timeland, an album made for KG’s two dates at Pink Rocks Amphitheatre in 2020. The 2 15-minute tracks have been designed to be performed in the course of the break between every set, however since Covid put a cease to these exhibits – twice – KG decided to simply launch the music. This, then, is a brand new album recorded particularly for the Colorado exhibits KG lastly get to play this month.
Probably the most substantial of KG’s three new releases – and absolutely their most pop-attuned to this point – is Adjustments. It had a tough beginning. In 2017, the band dedicated to releasing 5 albums but additionally discovered themselves struggling to complete one specific mission. Having set one other structural teaser – switching between two totally different scales with each chord change in every of the songs – they discovered they couldn’t pull it off. Since there gave the impression to be no approach ahead, they deserted the classes, diving into Gumboot Soup as a substitute. The unfinished album niggled, nevertheless it was left alone till KG returned to it in the course of the pandemic. Although motorik beats carry a lot of the set and there are prog and sci-fi-metal parts, Adjustments throws again to tracks like “Ambergris” and “Kepler-22b” (from the terrific Omnium Gatherum) in its tapping of soul, disco and R&B, styled alongside each basic and fashionable strains. Throughout the set it’s lighter on guitars, heavy on synths.
The epic “Change” is a powerful opener: it begins with a rinky-dink keyboard-and-hi-hat tune after which morphs right into a glossy, ’70s R&B beast, earlier than it’s off and working at a unique tempo, nudging Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones because it goes, then settling right into a retro kosmische groove earlier than exiting on a prog cost. Subsequent on the tracklist (a artful acrostic) is “Hate Dancin’”, which sees singer Mackenzie transferring from professed loathing to a deep love of similar, over a Michael Jackson/yacht-rock hybrid. The tempo drops for the languid “No Physique”, which corrals mid-’70s Floyd right into a snapshot of an out-of-body expertise. Very totally different are “Astroturf”, a warning towards our sanitising of the pure world, solid in candy cosmic disco and pastoral prog-jazz, and the hard-driving “Gondii”, which suggests The Vehicles raised on Neu! and is definitely the primary pop tune to namecheck a parasitic organism present in cat faeces and raw meat. One monitor saved from the 2017 Adjustments classes seems: “Exploding Suns” is a beautiful, laidback symphony of psychedelic soul and synth jazz, its murmurous, multi-tracked vocals belying the lyrical horror: “Exploding golden solar/Bursting radiation/Get in your ft and run for the shelter/A change is gonna come/Eight minutes and 20 seconds/Over earlier than begun”.
The title is a neat match, nevertheless it’s not solely Adjustments that underscores its makers’ dedication to evolution. And it’s not simply this triad, both: from 2015’s Quarters! onwards, KG have demonstrated their future-facing drive in initiatives with a big-picture facet that extends even past the Gizzverse. The intrigue lies in the place that Mach-speed drive takes them subsequent.
