King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard First Album
Twyla Plack
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (KGLW) are an Australian rock band formed in 2010 in Melbourne, Victoria.[1][2] The band's current lineup consists of Stu Mackenzie, Ambrose Kenny-Smith, Cook Craig, Joey Walker, Lucas Harwood, and Michael Cavanagh. They are known for exploring multiple genres, staging energetic live shows, and building a prolific discography.
The band's early releases blended surf music and garage rock and were released on their label, Flightless. They released several psychedelic and progressive rock albums in the early 2010s, and incorporated a broader range of musical styles later in the decade, such as jazz fusion on Quarters! and the folk-inspired Paper Mch Dream Balloon. In 2016, they generated more mainstream attention with Nonagon Infinity, which won the ARIA Award for Best Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Album.[3][4]
In 2017, the band fulfilled a promise to release five studio albums within the year, and also marked the beginning of a trilogy of microtonal albums with Flying Microtonal Banana. Subsequent releases integrated heavy metal, synth-pop and progressive rock, and feature lyrics that address environmental themes and a connected fictional universe termed the "Gizzverse" by fans. Eric Moore, the second drummer and manager, left in 2020. Since 2019, the band has produced several albums per year, including releasing five in 2022 with three of the releases in that October. Their 25th and most recent album, The Silver Cord, was released in 2023.
The band members all grew up and went to school in the Deniliquin, Melbourne, and Geelong areas of Australia. Mackenzie, Moore, and Walker met studying the music industry at RMIT University,[6] and the other members were mutual friends. The band started off with a fluid lineup of members, but the lineup eventually became Mackenzie, Walker, Moore, Kenny-Smith, Cavanagh, Craig, and Harwood. Kenny-Smith was the last to enter the band in 2011.[7] Mackenzie stated he was not sure where the band's name came from.[8] Melbourne artist Jason Galea has created all of the band's album art and the majority of their music videos.[9]
The band's first releases were two singles in 2010, both self-released: "Sleep / Summer!" and "Hey There / Ants & Bats". The band's next release, 2011's Anglesea (named after Anglesea, Victoria, Mackenzie's home town), was released as a four-track EP on CD. These releases did not become available digitally until the Teenage Gizzard compilation in 2020.[citation needed] Willoughby's Beach was released by Shock Records on 21 October.[10] Beat Magazine described the nine-track garage rock EP as "filled to the teeth with consistently killer hooks".[11]
The band's first full-length album, 12 Bar Bruise, was released on 7 September 2012.[12] The 12-track garage rock album was self-recorded, and several tracks used unconventional recording methods; for example, the vocals for the album's title track were recorded through four iPhones placed around a room while Mackenzie sang into one of them.[13]
The band's second full-length album, Eyes Like the Sky, was released on 22 February 2013.[14] Described as a "cult western audio book",[14] the album is narrated by Broderick Smith and tells the story of outlaws, Native Americans, and other figures of the American frontier. It was written collaboratively by Smith and Stu Mackenzie. Mackenzie said the album was inspired by Western films and Red Dead Redemption, among other things,[15] and was written as a response to being typecast in their previous releases.[citation needed]
The band's fifth full-length album, I'm in Your Mind Fuzz, was released on 31 October.[22] The 10-track album touches on elements of fantasy,[23] and lyrically delves into the concept of mind control. This was the first time the band took a "traditional" approach to writing and recording an album: the songs were written, the band rehearsed together, and they recorded the songs "as a band" in the studio.[24] Pitchfork described the album as "open[ing] with a sprint" and ending "with some of their best slow jams".[25] In 2019, the album came at #6 on Happy Mag's list of "the 25 best psychedelic rock albums of the 2010s".[26]
Quarters!, King Gizzard's sixth full-length album, was released on 1 May 2015.[28] The album features four songs, each running for 10 minutes and 10 seconds,[29] making each song a quarter of the album. Drawing upon jazz fusion and acid rock, the album's more laid-back sound was described as "unlike anything they've released before" by Tonedeaf magazine.[30]
On 17 August, King Gizzard released the title track "Paper Mch Dream Balloon" as the lead single for the album with the same name.[31] The second single, "Trapdoor", had a music video released on 10 November.[32] On 13 November, the band released its seventh full-length album, Paper Mch Dream Balloon.[33][34] It features only acoustic instruments and was recorded on Mackenzie's parents' farm in rural Victoria.[34] The album features "a collection of short, unrelated songs"[34] described as "mellow, defuzzed psychedelia".[35] It was the band's first album to be released in the United States via ATO Records.[36]
The band's eighth full-length album, Nonagon Infinity, was released worldwide on 29 April 2016.[37] Described by Mackenzie as a "never-ending album", it features nine songs connected by musical motifs that flow "seamlessly" into each other, with the last track "linking straight back into the top of the opener".[38] On 8 March, the band released a video for the first single, "Gamma Knife".[39] The song "People Vultures" was released on 4 April,[40] and its music video on 6 May.[41] The album received high praise from critics, with Pitchfork's Stuart Berman writing that it "yields some of the most outrageous, exhilarating rock 'n' roll in recent memory".[42] Happy Mag's Maddy Brown described it as "an intensely striking, ferocious sound that gets the blood flowing and heart racing".[43] The band earned its first ARIA Award when Nonagon Infinity won the 2016 ARIA Award for Best Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Album.
We had this random batch of songs. It was not a cohesive record at all. So we thought we'd split it up and split again until it became five. We worked on Nonagon Infinity pretty intensely in 2015 and 2016. We came close to burning ourselves out, or at least wringing each other's necks. We took a break, and then all these random, disparate song ideas came out of that void of not recording for a little while. Then we worked on everything, one album at a time.
The band's ninth full-length album, Flying Microtonal Banana, was recorded in the band's own studio[45] and released on 24 February 2017.[46] The album was recorded using custom instruments adhering to 24 TET. It was described as "a soaring take on microtonal music" by Guitar World.[47] Three tracks were issued in advance: "Rattlesnake" (the opening track) in October 2016, "Nuclear Fusion" in December, and "Sleep Drifter" in January 2017.[48][49][50] The music video for "Rattlesnake", directed by Jason Galea,[51] was described by Happy Mag's Luke Saunders as "a masterclass in hypnotism".[52]
Another full-length album, Murder of the Universe, was released on 23 June.[53] It is a concept album divided into three chapters: The Tale of the Altered Beast and The Lord of Lightning vs. Balrog (released on 30 May), and Han-Tyumi and the Murder of the Universe (11 April). Spill Magazine explained that the album "describes the impeding doom of the world in a dark fantasy genre kind of way".[54][55][56] It is narrated by Leah Senior[57] for the first two chapters, and a text-to-speech program for the final chapter. The band made their international television debut on 17 April, performing "The Lord of Lightning" on Conan on TBS in the United States.[58]
The album Sketches of Brunswick East was released on 18 August. It is a collaboration with Alex Brettin's psychedelic jazz project, Mild High Club.[59] Taking inspiration from Miles Davis' 1960 album Sketches of Spain, as well as the band's base recording location of Brunswick East in Melbourne, it is a jazz improvisational album. Mackenzie described the record as relating to the constant changes in their neighborhood, and trying to finding beauty in the location.[59]
The album Polygondwanaland was released as a free download on 17 November. The band encouraged fans and independent record labels to create their own pressings of the album, stating that it was "free to download and if you wish, free to make copies".[60] The first track "Crumbling Castle", was released on 18 October. A music video created by Jason Galea accompanied its release on YouTube.[61] As of August 2023, 363 different versions of the album have been recorded on the physical music database Discogs,[62] and it has been called "the ultimate vinyl release" by Louder than Sound.[63]
In December, the band announced a new album, and two singles were released digitally: "All Is Known", which had previously been performed live, and "Beginner's Luck", an entirely new song.[64][65] These singles were followed by two more: "The Last Oasis" and "Greenhouse Heat Death" on the 20th. Gumboot Soup was released on 31 December.[66] Mackenzie explained in an interview that the songs on the album were songs that didn't work in, or came after, the other 2017 records, but that they were not b-sides.[67]
In January 2019, the band announced that new music was in the works.[71] On 1 February, they released a new single, "Cyboogie", as a 7-inch single backed with "Acarine".[72] A week later, they announced another North American tour,[73] and a show at Alexandra Palace in London, which featured (as they said) "a new set, new songs, and a whole new visual experience".[citation needed]
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