King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Share New Album Release Date and Single ‘Deadstick’
Phantom Island is the followup to last year’s Flight b741.
Image Maclay Heriot
After teasing fans last week with the announcement of new album Phantom Island, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have today (April 16) revealed the record’s official release date – Friday, 13 June, via the band’s own p(doom) records (pre-order here).
The songs making up Phantom Island were written and recorded while the band was working on last year’s Flightb741, with new single, ‘Deadstick’, the second taste of the album. A bluesy brass number, the band took to Instagram to unveil the tune, with frontman Stu Mackenzie claiming it “sounds like the Blues Brothers on crack.”
He adds, “I wanted to be Elwood Blues so bad when I was a kid. I would dress up like them and busk every weekend at the Sunday market. I would watch it on repeat whilst cooking dry white toast on the grill of our electric heater. Still yet to finish the 4 fried chickens and a coke tho..”
Described as King Gizzard’s orchestral album, the band recruited British historical keyboardist, conductor and arranger Chad Kelly to share his expertise. “He brings this wealth of musical awareness to his chameleon-like arrangements,” Mackenzie says. “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.”
Accompanying the song is a music video directed by Guy Tyzack that depicts the band experiencing a plane crash. “‘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,” Tyzack explained. “The song is big and chaotic, so then I went about casting swing dancers and eccentric extras to fill the landscape.”
Phantom Island follows last year’s Flight B741 and 2023 records The Silver Cord and PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation.
King Gizzard are performing across Europe next month before touching down in North America for a run of orchestral shows.
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s Phantom Island arrives June 13 via p(doom) records (pre-order here). Check out the album artwork and tracklisting for Phantom Island below.
Phantom Island
1. Phantom Island
2. Deadstick
3. Lonely Cosmos
4. Eternal Return
5. Panpsych
6. Spacesick
7. Aerodynamic
8. Sea of Doubt
9. Silent Spirit
10. Grow Wings And Fly
