King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard Perform ‘Flight b741’ with Songs for Kids Band
Billboard
The prolific Australian collective team up with musical ensemble of kids and young adults with disabilities and illnesses.
The prolific Australian collective team up with musical ensemble of kids and young adults with disabilities and illnesses.
“King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard isn’t just a band. It’s a shape-shifting beast that devours genres for breakfast and spits out sounds you didn’t even know you needed.
Psychedelic rock, thrash metal, jazz, electronica, prog, folk, synth-pop and more; nothing is sacred and everything is up for grabs for this Melbourne-based sextet. We’re talking 26 studio albums and counting, 39 live recordings, stacks of singles and enough music videos to keep you glued to your screen for days. And it’s all been done over the course of just 14 years.
The latest record, Flight b741, was released in August right in the middle of a 44-date world tour. Its sound is heavily influenced by no-frills Southern rock n’ roll bands from the late ’60s and early ’70s—pedal steel, harmonicas, bluesy twang and all”
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have detailed a new run of 2025 U.S. shows. Next summer, they’ll play shows with conductor and music director Sarah Hicks and city-specific orchestras. For example, a show at Columbia, Maryland’s Merriweather Post Pavilion will feature Washington, D.C.’s National Symphony Orchestra, and the Colorado Symphony will play with the band at Colorado Springs’ Ford Amphitheater. Still, in Forest Hills, New York, and Buena Vista, Colorado, they’ll fit in rock’n’roll shows. See King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s tour dates below.
SPELLLING has announced her first tour since 2023. The “Portrait of My Heart” tour begins in San Francsico on April 4 and wraps up in Reno on May 19, stopping in Los Angeles, Austin, Houston, Atlanta, Washington DC, Philadelphia, NYC, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, and more. According to a press release, she has “brand new songs” to perform, and you can see all dates below.
In the first half of a decade which saw the rise of many diaristic singer-songwriters, the indie world still struggles with whimsy or theatricality as concepts. Yet, Oakland art pop multi-instrumentalist Tia Cabral crafted one of the most ambitious, existential sleeper hits of the past five years by operating in a fantasy world of her own. Centered around her distinctive soprano cutting through lush, immaculately produced walls of harp, prog guitars, woodwinds and strings, The Turning Wheel is half paean to the natural world, half chilling depiction of isolation outside of it. From the pulsing lovesickness of “Always” to the icy synth showcase of “Queen of Wands” to the grandiose centerpiece of “Boys at School,” she carves out one mini-opera after the other, dazzling us one breath and haunting us the next. For all the critical darlings singing plaintive, poetic lines over acoustic guitars, few moments will still cut like Cabral’s delivery of “I’m meaner than you think, and I’m not afraid of how lonely it’s going to be” by the decade’s end. —Elise Soutar
Special Interest will be on tour this fall, including dates with Show Me the Body and an appearance at Levitation fest in Austin. Things kick off with a NYC headline show at Le Poisson Rouge on September 21 that is in-the-round with Dollhouse and DJ Chaotic Ugly. All dates are listed below.
As far as playing live and touring goes, Dwyer’s decades of experience automatically qualify him to give advice. I almost have to tell him this directly, since he reflexively doubts his own authority—“Who the fuck am I to talk?”—and immediately checks his established act privilege: nightly hotels, a comfortable sprinter van, a merch person. Eventually he doubles back, reassuring us both that he can give advice since the comparative luxury Osees now enjoy was earned over years of touring. “I have been there, sleeping on the floor and waking up with cat litter stuck to my face,” he muses. “So I can speak.”
On this tour, Mackenzie is giving up a bit of the creative control in order to livestream each show on YouTube — something he’d considered for years but that took time to fall into place. Documentary filmmakers Jackson Devereux and Allen Dobbins record each performance in real time, with the sound mix (helmed by longtime King Gizzard audio engineer Sam Joseph) coming straight from the live mix of the show. It’s not a traditional way to livestream — most acts would make sure to have a separate sound mix going out to the stream — but it’s one that fits in with their DIY approach. “I think a lot of people would look at this operation and be like, ‘You guys are absolutely insane,’” Mackenzie says. “That is not what you’re supposed to do. So many things could go wrong at any moment, but I think making it free allows you to have a few teething problems along the way, and figure it out in good faith.”
“The city of Olympia in Washington has declared today, August 23, “Bikini Kill Day,” in honor of the foundational riot grrrl band, which famously formed in 1990 with members Kathleen Hanna, Billy Karren, Kathi Wilcox, and Tobi Vail. (The current lineup includes Hanna, Wilcox, Vail, and touring guitarist Sara Landeau.) The honor is another feather in the band’s 2024 cap; earlier this year, Hanna released her memoir Rebel Girl: My Life As A Feminist Punk, Bikini Kill made their late-night TV debut on Colbert, and the band is currently on tour”
The multi-instrumentalist has always shown his talents, but on Love Rudiments, Segall proves he can make a compelling record without wielding the instruments (including his voice) he is typically associated with. The drums are joined by instruments like vibraphone, which gives the album a mysterious and curious quality, enticing and hypnotising listeners with every note.
Looking around the theater, Hanna was spot-on in terms who Bikini Kill fans are in 2024: a glorious and giddy cross-section of women, girls, men and gender non-conforming fans both young and old, who clearly resonate with the Olympia, Washington rockers’ buoyant and badass rants and anthems, over three decades and counting.
OSEES released their 28th album SORCS 80 last week. It’s unusual in their discography in that there are no guitars on the album, with two synth samples being the only sounds other than bass, drums and frontman John Dwyer’s vocals. It’s a terrific mutant punk record and today they’ve shared a video of them playing the album in full on a helipad atop a skyscraper in DTLA. Directed by Delaney Schenker, it’s pretty awesome and you can watch the whole thing below.
SORCS 80 hits you upside the head from the first second of opening volley “Look at the Sky,” and you are barely given a chance to get your bearings before being pummeled again. So it goes for the whole shebang that leaves you punchdrunk and giddy. This is OSEES‘ 28th full-length and following last year’s immediate, near-poppy Intercepted Message, he’s devolved the band’s sound, diving into the primordial ooze for an album of bashing caveman punk. Albeit one with NO GUITARS, and only two two synth sounds in their place.
Basically I wrote the demos at home using a synthesizer. I did it on a four-track cassette, which was really fun. Every song was just drum loops, bass, keys, and vocals. One day, me and Tom [Dolas, keyboards] sat down and picked a sound each. I picked a thin, aggressive tone and he picked a more round one with less attack. Then we took those tones and ran them into Pro Tools and into a three-octave keyboard. Then we loaded the songs I’d written into these Roland SPD-SX’s so we could play them like drums, but tonally. The idea initially was that all four of us could be on stage playing them, with Tim Hellman holding down bass guitar. There is bass on the record, but I’m not playing guitar. I originally wanted Tim to play sampler, but we ran out of time for this stupid idea we were running with. But it was interesting to write an entire record using just one sound, but affecting it with guitar amplification.
Yo Gabba Gabba! is back. The kids television show is being revived as Yo Gabba GabbaLand!, and it comes with a soundtrack with an impressive list of names such as Kurt Vile, Ty Segall, and Thundercat.
What sounds like a swift descent into madness or preface for a cult escape thinkpiece is actually pretty standard behaviour for a passionate King Gizzard fan. Why I and many others readily spend a month’s rent on dozens of concert tickets is difficult to pinpoint, and something that escapes the Melbourne rock band’s comprehension as well.
“Hell no!” exclaims singer-guitarist Stu Mackenzie when I ask if he had ever expected the Grateful Dead-esque fandom surrounding the band. Speaking by phone on the eve of the summer solstice, his wide-eyed gratitude is palpable as he pieces together the puzzle.
I understand his disbelief. Following King Gizzard to cities I have trouble placing on a map was more of a culture that absorbed me at its onset than a conscious lifestyle choice. “It was definitely not part of the game plan. I mean, I’m not sure we ever really had a solid game plan,” admits Mackenzie.
The rollicking feel of Flight b741 masks some of the band’s most plainly dark lyrics to date, exploring dissociation, suicidal ideation and global collapse in a casual, conversational style – it’s one of the most cheerful doomer records in recent memory. The title of eight-minute closer Daily Blues is a pun, referring to its frenzied blues workout as well as its chorus of “gettin’ fucked up daily”. On Le Risque, the band – vocals are shared across the album, and on many songs they all take a shot at singing – crave “something to thin the blood,” imagining daredevil stunts as a way to get shaken out of a stupor. “I’m feeling like a horse on ket,” on Field of Vision, is a silly image, but in this context it refers to moving through the world in a depressive haze.
A catalog that refuses to be pinned down to any single genre. One album may give off Tame Impala aesthetics (the Moog-heavy “The Silver Cord” from last year), while its predecessor, “PetroDragonic Apocalypse,” is a thrash-heavy metal record akin to early Mastodon. The group has made pastoral folk pop (“Paper Mâché Dream Balloon” from 2015), and fuzzier, psychedelic garage and surf rock (“Willoughby’s Beach” from 2011). When you’re listening to “the Gizz,” the only constant is change. “Every single record is reflective of whatever phase of life we’re in, whatever made us creatively most inspired at the time,” Mackenzie said in an interview.
This Week: Off the back of releasing her new album ‘CARE/TAKING’ (out NOW via Tender Loving Empire Records), New Zealand-raised, Los Angeles-based artist Jess Cornelius answers a series of inane questions!
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have shared a second song from their soon-to-be-released 26th album Flight b741. “Hog Calling Contest” definitely has a honky tonk twang to it, in the band’s own inimitable way. “While recording Flight b741, we occasionally had these ultra inspired tune-up/warm-up jams,” say the band. “Of course, we were never actually recording during these moments though. Lost to time. Except one time; This time. We learnt to record these moments; ‘Daily Blues’ came together this way too. But ‘Hog Calling Contest’ retains a unique unhinged-ness that only comes when you’re fooling around with your mates and you don’t think you’re being recorded. Happy in mud!”
Also out today is Oink Oink Flight b741: The Making of… which is a 15 minute mini documentary about the new album. Says director Guy Tyzak, “We were tasked with capturing the band make an album from scratch in two weeks, they purposefully didn’t prepare much for the recordings so it was very difficult for me to plan what to film,” Tyzack says. “I just knew they’d be in one room and three of them might drop out at any moment because they were expecting babies. The room looked brown and boring so I painted it like the sky to match the theme of the album in one 17hr stretch with three friends and a slab of mids.”
Kathleen Hanna, Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, and Sara Landeau revisit a punk classic
“It’s always a treat to check in on Jess Cornelius’ and her sonic evolution every few years. And despite her recent rollercoaster ride, it’s encouraging to hear her artistry continue to grow as she faces her ongoing journey with resilience and sincerity”
“A collection of ten rollicking, soaring, eviscerating songs that affirm Cornelius as the deftly poetic singer-songwriter we’ve always known her to be.
Jess Cornelius, Care/Taking included in a list of the best albums out June 14th!
“Those twin impulses, the joy of new life and the fear it can provoke, propel their way through this album. It’s compelling stuff, but even more impressive is the composition: bold choices confidently made”
“She grapples with those intense emotional stakes on CARE/TAKING with unflinching lyrical honesty and sonic ingenuity.”
“With solid musicianship and performances throughout, a heavy dose of creativity and unique vocals, CARE/TAKING is a varied, sonically interesting, and impressive sophomore release from Jess Cornelius.”
“Three Bells, is one of [Ty’s] most ambitious to date, a progressive psychedelic opus that’s at times playful and freewheeling, but invariably returns to moments of more intricate sprawl
Three Bells finds [Ty] properly flexing his most creative muscles, following flights of fancy into weird and exciting places”
We fell in love with Jess Cornelius in her former band, Teeth & Tongue, and she is on the cusp of releasing her second solo album, CARE/TAKING out June 14th. “Laps In The Drugstore”, is the latest single from Jess, and features her beautiful melodies, a cativating guitar line, stabbing piano keys and has a cracking video as well.
Australian sextet King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are folding their own KGLW label into a new entity, (p)doom Records, which will not only put out their new and archival music moving forward but also that of their individual band members, friends and collaborators. First out of the gate on July 19 will be Ill Times, the debut pairing of Tame Impala/Pond/GUM principal Jay Watson and Gizzard multi-instrumentalist Ambrose Kenny-Smith. The title track is available now