The Single Life: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Peaches & More

Sometimes, it just comes down to location, location, location. A band’s postcode giving you an immediate idea – or even prejudice – as to what you’re about to hear. Yacht are from Portland. The hipster’s dream metropolis, a craft brewery on every corner, and record shops where the rare Argentinian pressing of that album you always wanted is in stock and just waiting for you. Sure, this air of slightly patronising artisan coffee houses may well be completely wrong, but calling your song I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler (Downtown/CreateControl) probably fits the model. In its synthesised nostalgic way it nods to the past, but keeps - whether by accident or design – a slightly ironic detachment to its own sound. Are they making a joke? More to the point, are you in on it? Perhaps apocryphally, the band name may even be an acronym for ‘Young Americans Challenging High Technology’. Of course it does.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the flanno belt suburbs of Melbourne, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard can variously sound like they’re from San Francisco 1971, or as the lighter touch of Paper Mache Dream Balloon (Flightless/Remote Control) maybe suggests, perhaps London 1967. From what is their seventh album in really not very long – it’s an extraordinary output and/or work ethic, whichever you come at it – things have got a little lighter. Everybody’s barefoot, laying on a daffodil-covered hill watching the colours of the sky change, before stumbling upright and stepping on a bindi-eye in the grass, and coming back to some sort of reality. They probably then stroll back to somebody’s share house, have a jam, and think about what direction their eighth album may take – if they haven’t recorded it already. 

In Christchurch, New Zealand the guitars are a bit more scrappy and maybe a bit less thoughtful than the Dunedin sound from further down the islands of a couple of decades ago. And Joe Sampson is a kind of local fuzzy punkish Kevin Parker, member of many bands - some which work, some which haven’t. T54 probably the widest-known until now. Salad Boy is now the one being knowingly mentioned in blogs and various publications about the planetary hivemind that is the interwebs – so Australia, listen here: Dream Date (Trouble In Mind) is 2 minutes 40 of buzzy joy. Guitar hooks aplenty, even as they fall down the stairs. Sure, it’s from a Kiwi garage – but remember even across the Tasman they drive Commodores as well.

Resident in Woodstock (yes, that one), it’s geographically unsurprising that Josh Ritter lyrics appear in a Dylanesque tumble of words, undercut with that version of Americana that comes in a corduroy sport-coat, and a pair of well-worn work boots. Getting Ready To Get Down (Signature Sounds) is the character vignette storytelling of a man who has a sideline as a sometime novelist, and this coming from an upcoming album titled Sermon On The Rocks might suggest some of his other interests and subject matters.   

Peaches comes a great arty somewhere. Her guest on Close Up (I U She) is the singular Kim Gordon - once of Sonic Youth, and always of New York. The latter remains ineffably cool as she intones part of the conversation of the song, and somehow above the fray while acting as the once Miss Nisker’s wrestling coach (yes, you read right…) in this distinctly NSFW clip. While the visuals veer toward Mardi Gras night on bad pingers, the music tends shamble by in her usual cut-up manner. This apparently suggests you are somewhere of the avant-garde, or gave up on quality control in preference to attempts at shock value a couple of albums ago.

The whispery ‘dream pop’ of Sydney’s Fabels is an often curious collision in its origins. Hiske Weijers’ accented vocals give it an almost exotic European edge – some have suggested Sigur Rus among potential reference points. Ben Aylward’s guitars and cross-currenting voice take it perhaps toward Ride or bands of that ilk in its flow, which is built on some fuzzy electronic textures. Liege/Montreal (Independent) mostly floats by, with an inexorable pull to it, but you sometimes get the feeling there’s some wreckage in the water, to make it discomforting and intriguing at once. Maybe that was the idea.

To further sub-genre this musical world and in contrast to the above, RKDA call themselves ‘industrial dream pop’. This maybe means the balance is more toward the machines making the music than the humans. Spaces (Independent) possibly suitable for use as soundtrack to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis – if Moroder hadn’t done it already. But that was in the 80s and probably might bear another update. This, mastered by Joe Lambert – who has the very suitable names of Moby and Hot Chip among others on his resume – has the band sounding more assured than their slightly rickety earlier sound. This might be the sound of them further finding themselves.

The confessional and sometimes self-cauterising style of John Grant that had him collaborating with the likes of Midlake to make a previous album takes a tangent with Disappointing (Bella Union). With unexpected counterpoint vocals from Everything But The Girl’s Tracey Thorn, it is built on rolling synths that make it dancey, but almost mockingly so. And for some reason I keep hearing Godley & Creme’s Englishman In New York through it. Grant’s often dark history of chemical struggle and HIV+ status put a range of different colours and possible contexts to much of what he does. This is no exception.