Underwater Is Where The Action Is

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD CHANGES

KGLW

My favourite King Gizzard story of the year is not that they released five albums in 2022, count ’em, not that they ran cool record fairs alongside their shows or played nine hours over three nights at Red Rocks, Colorado, without repeating any songs in their repertoire. My fave King Gizz story was that they sponsored the Anglesea women’s football team, who took out a premiership with the band’s name emblazoned on their backs. Such a classy move by this local prog-psych sensation. I’ve been a latecomer to what is commonly referred to as the ‘Gizzverse’. The output, the sheer mathematics of their career has been too overwhelming. 23 albums in ten years including five in both ’17 and ‘22. I’ve managed to dip my toe in with songs like ‘Mr. Beat’ from 2016s Nonagon Infinity or ‘Shanghai’ from 2021s Butterfly 3000. Is this the best album to launch a love affair? Why not. ‘Gondii’ is a good way to start, a crazy dropped beat time signature that devolves into a deep rhythmic channel while ‘Hate Dancin’ is both funny and moving in that very Australian way.

By Christopher Hollow

THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE LOS ANGELES FORUM: APRIL 26, 1969

Legacy This intense show catches the Experience deep in turmoil. Hendrix knew it’d be one of bassist Noel Redding’s last appearances (having already asked old army buddy, Billy Cox, to replace him on tour). The way Redding plays, he knows he’s on the way out too. His sound has a growl and an abandon to it that wasn’t apparent during the band’s meteoric rise. A curmudgeon, Redding plays permanently pushy and pissed off. It’s wild and helps elevate the set, which, at the time, was panned by Pete Johnson in the LA Times. Johnson wrote: “If Hendrix has anything serious to say, he is starting late and badly. If he has anything serious left to play, he hid it well.” But he was wrong. What we have here is not the all-tricks-all-atonce spritely combo of 1967s Monterey Pop, where Hendrix was begging the audience to love him. This is a tough, road

ravaged, world weary, angry

frustrated trio playing slow, hard, and intense. They don’t kick off with a hit to curry favour but rather a 15-minute cover of the instrumental ‘Tax Free’, originally by Swedish duo, Hansson & Karlsson. It serves as an incredible scene setter. Further highlights include two songs I never gravitated towards as a kid but hold Jimi’s very soul at their core. ‘I Don’t Live Today’, his ode to Indigenous Americans and his own Cherokee heritage (‘nothing but existing’) and my pick of his various cosmic origin stories, ‘Spanish Castle Magic’. If you don’t think they say anything, you’re not listening.

FLING II FLING II

Is there a more intoxicating sound in the rock n’ roll canon than the German motorik beat, the key element at the heart of Kosmische Krautrock? It’s repetitious, it’s joyous, you can load anything on top of it, and it regenerates itself in the most brilliant way. Listening to this record, I know Fling II agree with me. Who are Fling II? Basically, it’s the creation, dare I say die schaffung, of drummer/producer Brad Gowland out of Ann Arbor, Michigan (once home to the Stooges, Bob Seger and Kenny G). This is the softer side of Kosmische. To give a Neu! analogy, this is all Rother, no Dinger. No screams or punk edge here, just lilting, floating, trance-like states all powered by that beat. ‘Misk’ proves the theory. Twelve minutes’ worth of arpeggio’d keyboards laden with phaser that are as potent ten minutes in as they are at two. ‘Glint’ hits the same groove and doesn’t let go. Wunderbar.

ALESSANDRO ALESSANDRONI ALESSANDRO PROIBITO (MUSIC FROM RED LIGHT FILMS 1977-1980)

Four Flies This is a real hot mess, Italianstyle. They say the average foreplay session is 30 minutes (but should be longer), they say the average sex romp is three to seven minutes and anything over 10 minutes is too much (and two minutes is too short). Well, the numbers here match. This comp is 28 minutes (too short) and most of the tracks are two minutes (could be longer). But, like said romps, it’s so much fun trying to get it right. You know Alessandro Alessandroni as the whistler from those iconic Ennio

Morricone spaghetti western

soundtracks. There’s no whistling here, unfortunately, more biting of lips in a sonic fashion. Collected from four different softcore Italian film scores, Alessandro Proibito is bedroom erotica recorded by a musical auteur on the cheap, in a bedroom. It’d be very believable if a modern hipster had recorded it and assigned this backstory. ‘Lulù 77’, with its lead 12-string, is just interesting enough to put you off your game, ‘Casanova Sintetico’ uses synth where Alessandro once would’ve whistled, while ‘Il Cavaliere Elettrico’ is in the western theatre of music, with its hints of the Bonanza theme, which, I must confess, is not sexy in any way, shape or form. Was it good for you?