Latest news with #KingGizzard&theLizardWizard
Euronews
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Euronews
Artists revolt against Spotify over CEO's investment in AI warfare
The prolific Australian psych-rock group King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard is the latest band to cut ties with Spotify in protest of CEO Daniel Ek's increasing ties with the arms industry - specifically his investment in a controversial AI-driven military tech firm. Ek co-founded the investment firm Prima Materia, which has invested heavily in Helsing, a German company developing AI for use in warfare, including drone technology. The Financial Times recently reported that Prima Materia led a €600 million funding round for Helsing and had previously backed the company before Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The news has sparked strong backlash from musicians who say they no longer want to be associated with a platform whose profits are being funnelled into weapons development. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, known for hits like 'Work This Time' and 'Robot Stop', have removed nearly all of their music from Spotify, only leaving a few releases due to existing licensing deals. They announced the decision on Instagram, stating their new demos were available 'everywhere except Spotify,' adding 'f*** Spotify.' A post shared by Deerhoof (@deerhoof) Other artists have taken similar action. American indie group Deerhoof posted a statement saying they don't want their "music killing people" and described Spotify as a 'data-mining scam.' Experimental rock group Xiu Xiu also criticised the platform, calling it a 'garbage hole armageddon portal" and urged fans to cancel their Spotify subscriptions. These protests add to a growing list of controversies and concerns surrounding the streaming platform. Spotify recently came under fire after allowing an AI-generated band called Velvet Sundown, which has managed to rack up millions of streams, to appear on its platform with a 'verified artist' badge. Euronews Culture's very own music aficionado David Mouriquand described it as "a prime example of autocratic tech bros seeking to reduce human creation to algorithms designed to eradicate art." He added: "When artists are expressing real, legitimate concerns over the ubiquity of AI in a tech-dominated world and the use of their content in the training of AI tools, the stunt comes off as tone-deaf. Worse, morally shameless." And while Spotify announced in its Loud & Clear 2024 report that it paid over $10 billion (€9.2 billion) to the music industry in 2024 alone, critics argue that most of those payouts go to just a small percentage of top artists and labels, and that the platform still underpay and exploit the vast majority of musicians. Icelandic musician Björk put it most bluntly: 'Spotify is probably the worst thing that has happened to musicians.'
Mint
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
King Gizzard are contemporary music's premier shape-shifters
To call King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard a rock band is like describing the Marvel Cinematic Universe as just a film franchise. While that's technically true, they're also so much more—this generation's answer to Phish and the Grateful Dead; a band so prolific that Pitchfork once called them 'a vinyl pressing plant in human form"; contemporary music's most mind-bending musical shape-shifters; and the architects of a thriving DIY economy based on free culture ideals. Wild-eyed and perpetually restless, the Australian experimental rock sextet delight in chaos and subversion. And, perhaps, in watching hapless music critics try to encapsulate their massive oeuvre without having a full-on breakdown. Maybe I should just start from the beginning. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard—we'll call them Gizz for short—started out in 2010 as a psychedelic garage-rock band, firmly in the tradition of Ty Segall and Down Under contemporaries Thee Oh Sees. But things quickly got weirder. And then weirder still. Over the course of the next decade-and-a-half, the band would travel far and wide from their garage-rock roots, experimenting with krautrock, dream-pop, heavy metal, modular-synth prog, acid-friend spoken word, and too many other genres to name. Let me run you through just a four-album run to give you a sense of the whiplash their discography can induce. The Beatles-meets-Brubeck jazz-fusion of Quarters! leads somehow into the acoustic, bossa-nova inflected freak-folk of Paper Mâché Dream Balloon. Follow-up Nonagon Infinity—their breakthrough record—returns to scuzzy, lo-fi garage-rock before Flying Microtonal Banana takes a hard-left turn into Middle-East inspired microtonal riffs and a blasting chorus of Turkish horns. That one band could play such wildly different types of music—and do it well—is already amazing. The fact that all four albums came out within a single two-year period simply boggles the mind. Which brings me to the other problem one faces when trying to explain Gizz to the unfamiliar—the sheer volume of their output. Since their first full-length in 2022, the band have put out 27 studio albums, not counting the innumerable EPs, remix albums, live albums, and official bootlegs. They've managed to put out five studio albums within a calendar year not just once, but twice. The band's hulking discography can make them seem intimidating or a novelty act to newcomers. But for the band's hardcore fans—who call themselves The Weird Swarm and follow the band around on tours like GenZ deadheads—this commitment to exploring every creative idea, giving space and energy to every contrarian flight of musical fantasy, is what makes them so uniquely special. It does raise one question though—how long can they keep it up? How long before fatigue or the seductive inertia of commercial success saps them of their ability to constantly subvert and surprise? Judging by Phantom Island—their latest full length, released last month—they're in no danger of running out of steam just yet. The 10 songs on this album were originally written and recorded during the sessions for last year's Flight b741, an album full of crunchy roots rock riffs, rollicking boogie grooves and dark, paranoid lyrics about depression, suicide and the end of the world. When they returned to these songs to finish them a little while later, the band felt that they sounded a little unfinished. So they sent the songs to LA Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Chad Kelly—whom they'd recently met and befriended—and asked him for an orchestral glow-up. Kelly wrote new arrangements for the songs, and put together a 24-member orchestra to dub over the original recordings. The end result is an album that combines country-fried choogle and Philadelphia soul with lush orchestrations of strings, woodwinds and horns. Think a weirder, freakier Electric Light Orchestra, or a less bombastic Chicago. The opening title track begins with jazzy, AOR-adjacent layers of piano, violin and horns, before accelerating into a full-blown freakout in the final third. Deadstick is an irresistibly catchy chunk of Southern boogie-rock fortified by blasts of grandiloquent horns. Panpsych opens with solo flute and guitar in frisky interplay, before finding it's—rich, cosmic, eminently danceable—groove. Standout cut Spacesick channels David Bowie in both its cinematic arrangements of strings and crescendoing horns, and lyrical conceit (its protagonist is an astronaut looking down at the Earth from his spaceship). At its best, the band's blend of soul-ified psychedelia, 1970s rock and orchestral flourishes elevates these tracks to euphoric, earworm-worthy highs. But the fact that these songs weren't originally written for orchestral accompaniment means that sometimes the combination falls flat, as on the meandering, overstuffed Silent Spirit, or Eternal Return, which sounds like it's being pulled in two opposite directions. Elsewhere, like on the otherwise beautiful baroque pop of Lonely Cosmos, the strings seem almost superfluous, only really making their presence felt in the intro and outro without engaging with the song substantially. But even when things don't quite click, the results are interesting and ambitious enough to be worthwhile. Phantom Island may not be as visionary or ground-breaking as some of the other records in their catalogue, but it's still a whole lot of fun. It also makes me want to see what the band can achieve if they properly collaborate with an orchestra, bringing them in at the compositional stage rather than at the last minute. Knowing them, though, the next record will be another left-field turn. Will they venture into noise-punk territory next? Or maybe even rap? I have no idea. But I do know that whatever they get up to, I'll be tuning in. If only to see whether they can keep getting away with it. Bhanuj Kappal is a Mumbai-based writer.
Gulf Weekly
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Weekly
A new realm awaits
Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard is set to drop its 27th studio album Phantom Island tomorrow, June 13. Recorded simultaneously with their 2024 album Flight b741, the musical act said the new release is set to tackle themes similar to the 26th project, but with an orchestral laidback sound, crediting a 2023 moment when they met Los Angeles Philharmonic as inspiration. 'The songs felt like they needed this other energy and colour, that we needed to splash some different paint on the canvas,' frontman Stu Mackenzie said in an interview. 'We didn't know we were going to have an orchestra dubbed on top when we were recording. If we had, that would have really changed the songs, but we went into it very free and easy. 'The songs were written in a very 'improv' way, stitched together from multiple takes or longer jams… It feels like you're in the room with the band and the orchestra, that we're all in the same room together,' he added. The band members also revealed that they plan to perform the new songs live alongside various orchestras during an upcoming tour. Formed in 2010 in Melbourne, the group is known for exploring several genres and performing energetic live shows. The band's current line-up consists of multi instrumentalists Stu, Ambrose Kenny-Smith, Cook Craig, Joey Walker, Lucas Harwood and Michael Cavanagh.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
R.E.M, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Chelsea Wolfe to appear on 90-song album to benefit victims of the Californian wildfires
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. R.E.M, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Chelsea Wolfe, Mudhoney and Tenacious D are among dozens of artists who have contributed songs to Good Music To Lift Los Angeles, a new fundraising album to benefit those who've suffered loss as a result of the Californian wildfires. All proceeds from the album, which will be available for one day only, February 7 on Bandcamp, will be donated to the LA Regional Food Bank and California Community Foundation's Wildfire full track-listing for the album is:Alycia Lang feat. Lauren O'Connell - No Place to FallAnimal Collective - Tikwid (Demo)Annie DiRusso - Hudson LineThe Armed - No Perfect SunriseBEL - Nylon (Unreleased Demo)Blondshell - Roller Skate (T&A Demo)brotherkenzie - Dear MomCassandra Jenkins - Aurora, IL (Live at Zebulon)Centro-matic feat. Jason Isbell, Sadler Vaden - My Best Friend's Girl (Mexico City, January 18, 2025)Chelsea Wolfe - Woodstock (Live)Chris Cohen - Heavy Weather Sailing (Live at Face Festival)Cold War Kids - Run Away With Me (for LA)Courtney Barnett - Oh The Night (Demo)cumgirl8 - goblinCunningham Bird - Don't Let Me Down Again (Live)Dawes - Without the WordsDeath Cab For Cutie / The Postal Service -Enjoy the Silence (Live)The Dip - First Thing SmokingDirty Projectors & s t a r g a z e - More Mania Dr. Dog - So DeepEggy - A Moment's Noticed – Live from ChicagoFaye Webster - Underwater Boi – Turnstile cover (Demo)FIDLAR - New TattooFlock of Dimes - Someday We'll Lose It AllFriko - For Ella – Live at Thalia Hall)George Alice - TurbulenceGustaf - Mine demo remix (runoff concerto No. 1)The Heavy Heavy - One of a Kind – October Live SessionHippo Campus - EasyThe Hold Steady - 40 Bucks (Live at Brooklyn Bowl)Hotline TNT - Break RightHurray For The Riff Raff - Green, Green Rocky RoadI'm With Her - See You Around – Live from RaleighInterpol - Length of Love (Live)iRo - The DanceJames Henry Jr. - I Travel the AtmosphereJason Isbell and The 400 Unit - The One I Love (Live)Jeff Tweedy - Just Say Goodbye (Acoustic)Josh Ritter - Wildfires (Live from The KCD Theater, Louisville, KY – 2011) - Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Exploding Suns (Demo 1)LA LOM - East CalaverasLala Lala - Fair (bside)Little Dragon - Don't Cry (Local Natives Version)Local Natives - Nova (Alternative Unvierse Spiral Choir Extended Version)Lucius - Mad LoveMac DeMarco's - Piece of the Fuck - Bobbing for ApplesMadi Diaz - Good (worktape)Manchester Orchestra - The Gold (Live from Union Chapel)The Midnight - Los Angeles (Live)Miki Ratsula - if i blame myself (acoustic)Militarie Gun - My Friends are Having a Hard Time (Demo)Miya Folick - Fist (Demo version)MJ Lenderman - 37 Push-Ups (Live)Modest Mouse -Kingdom of Could'aMomma - I Want You (Fever) – Live at The George TavernMudhoney - Light Your WayMy Morning Jacket - Together AgainNeal Francis - Aprés SkiNeko Case - In California (Live from KCRW)The New Pornographers - Continue as a Guest (Live from KCMP)Nick Thune - Alone by MyselfPachyman - InventadoPerfume Genius - Fade Into YouPool Kids - Glitch (Demo)Porches - PorcelainPUP - Boring! (Demo)Real Estate - Talking Backwards (Demo)R.E.M. - Electrolite (Live)Richy Mitch & the Coal Miners - Blue LightsRicky Montgomery - SalvadorRY X - The RoseShannon Lay - Rare to Wake (Demo)Silversun Pickups - FeralSoccer Mommy - The Biggest Lie (Elliot Smith Cover)Soul Asylum - Stand Up and Be StrongSpiritual Cramp - Low and SlowSycco - Bad WorldSYML - WakeTenacious D - Keep on Loving YouTheo Katzman - Desperate Times (Solo)This Is Lorelei - Church Street BluesToro Y Moi - Tuesday (Wavedash Remix)Tunde Adebimpe - ILYTV on the Radio - Trouble (Live)Ty Segall - Big Hands Version 2The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream (Live)Water From Your Eye - DownWatkins Family Hour (feat. Gaby Moreno) - Sabotage (Live)'We only had a few weeks to put this compilation together and are absolutely humbled by the contributions,' says Good Music co-founder Jordan Kurland in a press release. 'Music is a healing force and we hope this collection of songs, in addition to raising much needed recovery funds, provides some solace.'
