King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard return with a frighteningly fresh new single ‘Phantom Island’ just in time for Halloween.
Fresh off the back of announcing an orchestral tour, Aussie psych stoner acid rock titans King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard bring us their hellish, hallucinatory new release ‘Phantom Island’, exquisitely timed to coincide with Halloween and deliciously teased on their social media. Sinister strings layer over the piano, with a sudden segway into strangely upbeat vocals that offers such a dramatic contrast in mood its like a bad trip intensifying.
Its delirious opening lyric preceded by haunting, ominous sounding piano chords sets the tone: ‘I just woke up from a dream, I was in a place I’d never been and never seen’. This trademark madcap King Gizzard track is full of frenetic tempo changes throughout its disorientating five minute duration. The stream of consciousness style lyricism such as ‘Found the closest speakeasy and ordered a stiff drink. Fuck I never thought I’d lose my mind. I suppose sanity is easy to lose and hard to find’.
In a typically eccentric statement to their beloved fans talking about ‘Phantom Island’, King Gizzard’s Stu Mackenzie said: “Hello world. So our last album was 10 songs. Except we recorded 20 in that session. Here’s a track from the other set of 10. It’s even more maxxed out than the last one. There’s a whole fuckin’ orchestra on there. Hahahahahah! But for real, what a joy to be alive. A privilege to be making music for a living and to be here still after all these years. If you’ve been listening to Gizz for a long time, thank you. We love you so much. If you’re just tuning in, welcome to the cult”.
In truly flamboyant style, the band also announced a huge tour featuring a different accompanying 28-piece orchestra in each U.S. city- ably led by conductor & music director Sarah Hicks. The tour will see the group perform with some of the country’s most renowned ensembles, before concluding with Field of Vision, a 3-day residency camping event at Meadow Creek in Buena Vista, Colorado. So if you do one frightening thing this Halloween, be sure you sound-bathe in the psychedelic delight of their haunting new single that will take you on a grotesquely groovy ride you won’t want to get off.
Words by Brendan Sharp
