King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are keeping the momentum going after last week’s album announcement, dropping the lead single, “Deadstick”.
Their 27th studio album, Phantom Island, lands June 13, and it’s their second release on their own (p)doom Records imprint.
Fifteen years and 26 albums in, the band continues to expand its sound. This time, they’ve added strings, horns and woodwind to what they call “their tangles of lysergic riff and melody.”
The album’s origins trace back to a 2023 show at the Hollywood Bowl, where the band met members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The orchestra invited them to participate in a series pairing classical players with rock and pop acts.
Fast-forward to 2024, and the band were working on what became Flight b741. Ten additional tracks from those sessions, says frontman Stu Mackenzie, “were harder to finish. Musically, they needed a little more time and space and thought.”
“The songs felt like they needed this other energy and colour, that we needed to splash some different paint on the canvas,” Mackenzie adds. To help, he enlisted British historical keyboardist, conductor and arranger Chad Kelly. “He brings this wealth of musical awareness to his chameleon-like arrangements. We come from such different worlds – he plays Mozart and Bach and uses the same harpsichords they did, and tunes them the exact same way. But he’s obsessed with microtonal music, too, and all this nerdy stuff like me.”
“Deadstick” showcases Kelly’s orchestral touch, blending strings, horns, and woodwind to turn the track into a lively jazz-rock riot. The accompanying video, directed by Guy Tyzack, leans into the chaos. “Deadstick refers to when a plane propeller stops midflight so I decided to have a massive plane made out of cardboard crash land into a beautiful location. The song is big and chaotic so then I went about casting swing dancers and eccentric extras to fill the landscape,” Tyzack says.
Mackenzie describes Phantom Island as “more introverted,” and says, “When I was younger, I was just interested in freaking people out, but as I get older, I’m much more interested in connecting with people.”
King Gizzard will take the album on the road in July 2025, performing alongside a different 29-piece orchestra in each US city. It marks their only US tour for the year. Any Australian dates are yet to be announced.
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s “Deadstick” is out now via via (p)doom Records.
