We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard really are the hardest working band in Australian music.
After wrapping a successfully busy 2013 which saw the dynamic seven-piece rock band complete several laps of the Aussie live circuit, release two studio albums, and scooping up the $50,000 AIR prize, along with much critical acclaim, you’d forgive the band for taking a well-earned break.
Instead of resting on their laurels, the Melbourne fuzz-rock favourites are charging into 2014 with the release of another full-length album, their fourth LP in just under 18 months
Titled Oddments, the new album is due to drop in February, following swiftly on from the September 2013 release of the psychedelically tinged but garage-in-spirit Float Along, Fill Your Lungs, (named by Tone Deaf readers as the 6th best Aussie LP of 2013) and nearly one year to the day after the Spaghetti western, spoken-word odyssey Eyes Like The Sky. “It’s probably the most literal song I’ve ever written. I love vegemite.”
Though it’s released next month, fans can already get a first taste of Oddments (assuming they don’t mind yeast-based breakfast spreads) in the form of brand new single, ‘Vegemite’.
The track is an authentic ode to the iconic Australian condiment, and King Gizzard vocalist/guitarist Stu McKenzie says, “it’s probably the most literal song I’ve ever written.”
No kidding. From its opening line (“I love, I love my vegemite/it’s strong as hell and black as night”) to its chirpy musical backing, it joins the tongue-in-cheek ‘Footy’ (from debut album 12 Bar Bruise) as another larrakin oddity in the band’s growing songbook and another expansion to King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard’s sonic repertoire that’s the polar opposite of the band’s 16-minute riff-a-thon, ‘Head On/Pill’ (one of 2013’s Top Songs according to you).
“I recorded ‘Vegemite’ at my parents’ house in Anglesea on their out-of-tune-but-exactly-a-half-step-down piano,” notes McKenzie, with the wonky ivories shouldering space with the sing-song vocals for prominence in the finished recording. There’s even a suitably silly music video to accompany the release (featuring an effect that’ll have fans familiar with Mulligrubs dabbing the moist ebbs of nostalgia from their eyes).
The “band that refuses to be defined by genre or bound by time,” is set to release Oddments on Friday 14th February on CD and digital, via King Gizzard’s own indie label Flightless Records, with a limited edition collectors vinyl release due in time for Record Store Day on April 19th 2014. (Hooray!)
Before then, King Gizzard And the Lizard Wizard have a number of festival appearances locked in; playing the O’Donnell Gardens Stage at St Kilda Festival 2014 (on Festival Sunday) and Aunty Meredith’s Golden Plains 8 in March, on a characteristically eclectic lineup featuring Public Enemy, You Am I, Flying Lotus, Neko Case, Cut Copy, and Yo La Tengo.
