King Gizzard Dances With The ‘Alien’ On New LP

King Gizzard Dances With The ‘Alien’ On New LP

King Gizzard Dances With The ‘Alien’ On New LP

(photo: Maclay Heriot)

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have put a name and a face to their long-awaited next foray into electronic music, Alien Metal, which will be released at some point this summer on the Australian band’s p(doom) label. The first taste of the project is “Level 5,” which is out now in tandem with a video directed by Hayden Somerville.

The clip features Australian actor Vince Colosimo, whose credits include Chopper, Lantana, The Wog Boy and Underbelly. “Hayden had brought up Vince on numerous occasions when fantasizing about casting for previous projects, but I had mostly laughed it off because it seemed impossible,” says producer Ruby Thomas. “We really wanted to find a strong, recognizable face to lead this clip, and in Australian cinema, Vince is all that and more. He was a dream to work with and brought so much more to the role than we could have imagined.”

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In 2023, King Gizzard released its first proper electronic album, The Silver Cord, although Alien Metal takes those guitar-free sonics to entirely new and more challenging places. The band’s 28th studio LP was made on Gizzard’s bespoke modular synthesizer setup dubbed Nathan, which it has been utilizing onstage for more than two years for improvised jams and unrecognizable takes on existing material. The sextet says it tracked and discarded multiple versions of what became Alien Metal before finally discovering the project’s identity during an hour-long late-night improvisation. Every song on the finished record grew from that single jam in the key of F#.

“Stu went from not knowing what a filter did, to quickly being able to run his own Eurorack channel on YouTube, if he wanted to,” group member Joey Walker says of bandmate Stu Mackenzie’s shared zest for exploring electronic sounds. “He’s that deep into it. But he doesn’t listen to electronic music [or] dance music, so he had to learn the template – the ‘beats,’ like in the filmmaking sense of a measure of structural progression, and how the ‘drop’ functions, that sense of tension and release. Like, a lot of people think it’s about everything getting as loud as it can possibly get, but it’s actually about pulling elements away, to emphasize the impact. Stu found his way there naturally, just through immersing himself in the gear.”

Despite the stylistic pivot, Mackenzie insists the album remains unmistakably King Gizzard. “It sounds so crunchy, but also beautiful,” he says. Adds Walker, “Alien Metal goes really hard, but it also goes to really interesting places. And it feels unique — it feels like us, still.”

“‘Sapience’ is this pulsating techno neo-rave thing,” he continues. “The other tracks go to such weird, interesting places. ‘Level 5’ is early Prodigy and early hardcore jungle, and ‘Superheavy’ is heading towards house, while ‘Kill for the Steel’ feels like weird IDM, with some heavy Miami Bass in there.”

King Gizzard will presumably unveil Alien Metal material during its only live shows of the year next month at its Field of Vision festival in Colorado and at New York’s Forest Hills Stadium. A fourth Big Apple-area gig has also been announced for Aug. 23 at Under the K Bridge Park, where Gizzard will stage a “rave” set.

Here is the track list for Alien Metal:

Sapience
Alien Metal
Superheavy, Supercritical
Kill for the Steel
Level 5
Rapid Alpha Decay
Uqt
Atomic Collapse

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