King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard back in all their strange and wonderful glory: Here's why you should be excited
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is a band that keeps its promises. Back in 2017, the Australian experimental psych rockers promised fans not one, not two, but five albums in one year. Some thought it was an impossible feat to achieve while others just laughed it off. Most fans were just excited to see if one of the most prolific bands of our time would deliver on their promise. Much to fans' delight and disbelief, the band did just that. They released five records over the year, each album as impressive (if not more) than the previous one, stunning fans and critics alike.
It wasn't as if King Gizzard churned out five hurried records to keep their word. As is often the case with King Gizzard, each album was at least loosely a concept album, possessing its own unique identity and flavor, spread across a range of experimental genres.
The first of the five albums was 'Flying Microtonal Banana', which was previewed with their most recognizable song today - 'Rattlesnake'. The album saw the band experimenting with 'micro-tones': the notes between traditional notes on the Western scale that are mostly used in Oriental and Middle Eastern scales but are largely absent in the Western tradition. Originally conceived as a record to be played on the Turkish baglama (a stringed instrument with movable frets), 'Flying Microtonal Banana' has been described as "a soaring take on microtonal music".
