Photo Credit: Maclay Heriot
Last week, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard took to its social channels to tease Flight b741, the band’s 26th studio album. Today, the pioneering psych ensemble makes good on its promise, delivering the first single “Le Risque” and an artful and illustrative music video, both of which plot a bold new flight path. For its first release on its newly minted p(doom) imprint, the band channels its restless, kinetic creative energy into a confidently collaborative project, finding intimacy and innovation in a “no concept” album.
“We wanted to make something that was primal, instinctual, more ‘from the gut’,” shares lead vocalist Stu Mackenzie, “just people in a room, doing what feels right. We wanted to make something fun.”
“Le Risque,” the lead single, is fun at the very least, flying high on a fluttering, hand-clapping backbeat with a twangy, rockabilly-inflected charge of electric guitar and harmonica. Hints of garage and heartland rock peak through the cloud cover, cohering behind a mic-passing celebration featuring a vocal debut from drummer Michael Cavanagh. At its core, the track is a mixed bag of thrill-seeking influences, reflecting the collaborative ethos from which it emerged. Locked in at the studio for two weeks, the six-piece fusion front ground away “like factory workers”, punching their cards and carefully tooling the scattered pieces of their latest flight. “We came in with the roughest skeletons for songs,” says Mackenzie, “and tried to keep the arrangements simple, free and easy. The best takes were always the ones where we were winging it pretty significantly.”
“This is our most collaborative record – the collaboration was occurring in the room, it was free, and everyone was bringing in songs and ideas,” the singer continues, highlighting a communal impulse that runs through to the lyrical level. “We had broad themes for every song, and for the bigger picture of the album as a whole,” Mackenzie adds, “but once the mic was passed it was all up to the person who was singing. These songs weren’t written in isolation – someone would write their verse, sing it for the demo, and that would inspire the next person’s part. So we were riffing off each other.”
Fans can watch the bandmates trade bars and the spotlight in the thematically appropriate music video, which shows Gizz members working hard and hardly working around an airplane hangar in matching flight suits. Direction for the visual accompaniment comes from previous collaborator Guy Tyzack, who offers the colorful anecdote that the “Gizz guys know how to put on a show. We were so tight for time that I didn’t pee all day.” Freely-flowing, fun-forward experimentation is a left turn for the prolific, shapeshifting band, but in this first taste, King Gizzard wears it well.
“The record is like a really fun weekend with your mates, you know?” Mackenzie reflects. “Like, proper fun.”
Flight b741 lands via p(doom) on August 9; the project is available to pre-order and pre-save now. For more information on King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s album rollout and 2024 tour plans, visit kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Flight b741
1. Mirage City
2. Antarctica
3. Raw Feel
4. Field Of Vision
5. Hog Calling Contest
6. Le Risque
7. Flight b741
8. Sad Pilot
9. Rats In The Sky
10. Daily Blues