King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard Unveil New Album ‘Phantom Island’

Those wild Aussies in King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard are back with a new album. Because did you really think they were going anywhere?

The band has announced a new album, Phantom Island, which will officially drop on June 13 via the band’s label, (P)Doom Records, according to Pitchfork. Along with the new announcement, the band has dropped a new song and video for the track “Deadstick,” directed by frequent King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard collaborator Guy Tyzack, who directed the videos for “Black Hot Soup” and “Le Risque.”

In a description of the video, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation says: “‘Deadstick’ is a dreamlike aviation disaster survival tale, featuring a giant cardboard plane crash, and a cliff-side dance party that might all be a figment of a stranded Ambrose’s badly concussed imagination.”

King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard Unveil New Album

Speaking about the video, Guy explained: “I started off wanting to create a frame that looked like a landscape painting with many different people and set pieces dotted about.”

“‘Deadstick’ refers to when a plane propeller stops mid-flight, so I decided to have a massive plane made out of cardboard crash land into a beautiful location,” he added. “The song is big and chaotic, so, then I went about casting swing dancers and eccentric extras to fill the landscape.”

The album was partially inspired by symphonic music, specifically the LA Philharmonic. “The songs felt like they needed this other energy and colour, that we needed to splash some different paint on the canvas,” King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard frontman Stu Mackenzie said, via The Line of Best Fit.

He then sought the help of his friend Chad Kelly, British historical keyboardist, conductor, and arranger. “He brings this wealth of musical awareness to his chameleon-like arrangements,” Mackenzie said of Kelly. “We come from such different worlds—he plays Mozart and Bach and uses the same harpsichords they did, and tunes them the exact same way. But he’s obsessed with microtonal music, too, and all this nerdy stuff like me.”

Phantom Island is available to pre-order now.