This week, Melbourne-based psych-rock group King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard shared a new orchestral single, “Phantom Island,” also the band announced a U.S. tour where they will be backed by a different 28-piece orchestra in each city. They also announced a three-day camping residency in Colorado.
“Phantom Island” follows “Flight b741”, the new album King Gizzard released in August via the band’s own p(doom) label.
The band’s Stu Mackenzie had this to say about the new song in a press release: “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.”
Conductor and music director Sarah Hicks will lead each orchestra. The camping residency will be at Meadow Creek in Buena Vista, CO. These shows will be the band’s only U.S. concerts of 2025.
Strings, horns, and woodwind add a veneer of regal fanfare to King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s 27th studio album, reaffirming their joint status as rock court jesters and jam-band royalty. The Australian sextet has scarcely sounded more celebratory than it does on “Phantom Island”, an album of uber-psychedelic soft rock garnished with disco, prog, and fiddly folk flourishes. It is absurd, orchestral, and typically adventurous, but also more “introverted” than usual, says singer-guitarist Stu Mackenzie, the ensemble’s shaggy-dog lyrics dotted with notes of existential wonder.
“Flight b741” is the prolific band’s 26th album. It was first announced on their social media channels. Then they shared the album’s first single, “Le Risque,” via a music video. Then they shared its second single, “Hog Calling Contest,” as well as a making of the album video entitled Oink Oink Flight b741: The Making of…. “Hog Calling Contest” .
Last year the prolific band released “The Silver Cord”, via KGLW. There were two versions of “The Silver Cord“, an extended one and a version with shorter tracks. “The Silver Cord” followed the elaborately titled “PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation”, which also came out last year.
The Fat Angel Sings 