Flying Microtonal Banana is the ninth studio album by Melbourne psych rockers King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Released in 2017 as part of their five albums in one year project, it’s a psychedelic masterpiece of driving rhythms and exotic eastern melodies.
You can’t accuse King Gizzard of being lazy psyched out bums. Their ambition to record five albums in one year, declared at the beginning of 2017, shows huge ambition and a pretty full-on work ethic. It’s not as if they spent the year in the studio either, the five albums were recorded in between international tours. The other expectation from a band putting out such a huge quantity of music is that quality would suffer, but that’s surprisingly not at all the case. Not only are each of 2017’s Gizzard releases great records in their own right, but even more impressively, each one has a very distinct sound and vision. Flying Microtonal Banana is the first of the five, and the one that adheres most closely to the psychedelic rock label, but with an eccentric twist.
It’s unique feature, quite outside of its inclusion in the five albums project, is the use of microtonal instruments. If you are a resident of the west, pretty much all the music you will hear during your lifetime will adhere to the twelve tone equal temperament western chromatic scale that evolved during the classical period. On these twelve notes are imposed the major and minor scales of western classical music as well as the pentatonic scales of folk and modern blues and rock. Even music we might consider difficult or advanced, such as model jazz, will still use these same twelve tones. The reason is simple, if you buy a guitar, or a piano, or a modern synthesizer or a computer music production suite, they are all designed to work with these chromatic tones. This is not true of other cultures. Indonesian Gamelan for example uses a different non-western interval system as does much Middle Eastern music. King Gizzard’s lead vocalist and guitarist Stu Mackenzie, with the help of a friendly luthier, installed extra frets in a yellow guitar to create quarter notes. The resulting guitar, named the Flying Microtonal Banana, then gave its name to the album. It’s these extra ‘in between’ notes that give the music its exotic eastern character. It’s rather incredible how effective the combination is with the typical driving King Gizzard psych rock rhythms. Don’t let this musical experiment frighten you though, it still very accessible. The melodies aren’t abstract or difficult, just strange enough to heighten one’s enjoyment.
The album has a pretty focussed vision throughout, the only real deviation from the general mood is Ambrose Kenny-Smith’s Billabong Valley, a tale of bush outlaws sung in his distinct voice that comes across rather like an Australian folk tale. Sleep Drifter too has a somewhat more gentle vibe to it than the rest of the album. The album opens with the driving chant of Rattlesnake, which really sets the tone, but it’s not until the second half that it really gets into its groove and where you’ll find the most interesting melodies that really show off possibilities of the microtonal instruments. For me Anoxia and especially Nuclear Fusion are the standout tracks. Anoxia sounds like a bastard child of ancient English folk and Moroccan rock. I especially love the instrumental section with the acoustic guitar picking out the melody while an electric whackawhacks through a wah. So cool. Nuclear Fusion is a real a crowd pleaser, right from the deep distorted ‘Nuclear Fusion’ voice at the start, through the ‘devil’s in the details’ verse and the glorious transition to the ‘essentially one being’ chorus. One of my favorite tracks of the year.
Having seven musicians makes it hard for the individuals to stand out. The band don’t really go in for feature solos, rather working more as an organic whole. The strongest ‘voice’ both vocally and instrumentally is band leader Stu Mackenzie. It’s his strident, often distorted vocals that make up the core of the Gizzard sound. Otherwise it’s difficult to work out which of the three guitarists is playing what. It’s certainly a credit to the band that the music never becomes a turgid mud of uncoordinated thrashing. Each musician must work pretty hard to find their place. One gets the impression from watching live performances that the guitar lead lines are usually Mackenzie and Joey Walker, with Walker responsible for the wah wah guitar that’s often front and center. The third guitarist Cook Craig seems to be usually holding up the harmony side. The rhythm section of dual drummers Michael Cavanagh and Eric Moore and bass player Lucas Skinner is the bedrock of the Gizzard psych rock sound. Probably the most relentless hypnotic driving drums and bass you’ve heard since Doremi Fasol Latido. Skinner’s bass is especially rock solid, I also love the way it occasionally pops up out of the mix to add its own melodic counterpoint. The icing on the cake of this combo is Ambrose Kenny-Smith who provides harmonica, keyboards and his own very distinct vocals. He’s featured most obviously in his own song Billabong Valley, but adds texture throughout. Checkout the lilting keyboard part in Melting as a great example.
Flying Microtonal Banana is a slow burner. You need to give it time to worm its way into your subconscious. It can appear rather relentless on first listen, but give it time and before long you’ll find yourself sucked into its strange alternative universe. It’s certainly unlike anything you’re likely to hear from any other band at this time in music history. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are one of the essential bands of the 2010’s and this is an excellent entry point into their musical world.
Checkout their live set on KEXP where they play songs from the album.