King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are nothing if not prolific, having released 21 albums in ten years; five of which in 2017 alone. However, one of those albums nearly never saw the light of day – the elusive Made In Timeland, two fifteen-minute tracks designed as intermission music for the COVID-cancelled marathon concerts at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, US, eventually only found release in physical formats with little-to-no fanfare.
With the pandemic easing enough to rearrange the three-hour Red Rocks sets to October 2022, the Australian six-piece soon realised that they now needed new interval music having released the original tracks. Enter Laminated Denim – second of three albums released this October. Albeit similarly structured to its predecessor with two fifteen-minute cuts and even an anagrammatic title of Made In Timeland, it abandons its out-there techno and electronica soundworld. Instead, Laminated Denim further explores the creative process involving long-form collaborative jamming found on opener to this month’s trilogy, Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava. This combination of existing context and new techniques has resulted in a non-stop half-hour of action that stands up well enough on its own as their 22nd full-length effort alongside its duty as an intermission soundtrack.
Although the second album to be released in October, Laminated Denim was in fact the first to be completed, drawing inspiration and momentum from the studio jams that birthed Omnium Gatherum track ‘The Dripping Tap’. The record opens, transitions between the two tracks, and closes with the ‘tick-tock’ beat-a-second found on Made In Timeland – rather than a clock, however, two timpani perform the beat, creating a prehistoric vibe perfectly introducing us to ‘The Land Before Timeland’. Frontman Stu Mackenzie’s vocals add to this feel, describing a hellish landscape ‘before time’, as it were: “Fire-winds are blowing / Hourglass is going / Long nights are impending / Laminated denim”.
If you didn’t listen to Mackenzie’s lyrical warnings however, you’d be packing your bags to head to ‘The Land Before Timeland’. Built on a motoring bassline from Lucas Harwood and high guitar ostinatos, harmonica from Ambrose Kenny-Smith and guitar lines from Mackenzie, Joey Walker, and Cook Craig are all dovetailed together to create a psychedelic powerhouse of a track that is equally apt for studying each part in repeated listens, or leaning back, zoning out and letting the whole soundscape wash over you.
The only hint of unease musically in this first side comes near its end, and is ironically paired with the tune’s most optimistic lyrics. Mackenzie distortedly announces “It’s good to be back / Re-railed / Back on track / Change the clock through sleight of hand / The river has been spanned / Behold: the land before Timeland” amongst dissonant bass, minor guitar arpeggios, and shrieking solos, before fading back into the transitionary timpani ticking – a foreshadowing section that hints at what is to come on the record’s B side.
A snare roll from Michael ‘Cavs’ Cavanagh kicks ‘Hypertension’ into life. Minor guitar arpeggios return immediately to accompany the first verse, before an extended jam section that immediately sets the contrasting tone of this track. With an already dark sound by way of its minor key, the separate instruments seem to be fighting each other with syncopation and polyrhythms rather than dovetailing nicely as on the record’s side A, creating a palpable sense of urgency that will certainly snap the listener back to reality should they have been transported to ‘The Land Before Timeland’.
One technique that the band have made their own through their voyages into jamming is the snappy, repeated refrain. From the minutes-long “Drip, drip from the tap / Don’t slip on the drip” of ‘The Dripping Tap’ to the cultish chant that closes ‘Lava’, ‘Hypertension’ takes the rhythmic element of these choruses one step further, as Mackenzie recites “I caught that hyperten-si-on / In another dimen-si-on / Inside my time inven-ti-on / I’ve laminated denim”. Deliberately pronouncing every syllable in the last word in each line to create a skipping effect, Mackenzie whips up the already urgent character of the track into a whirlwind frenzy before the timpani once again intone the end of the track and the album.
Very much an album of two halves, only linked together by the ticking timpani and Mackenzie’s reference to the title throughout, Laminated Denim is further proof that King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard can transform even mere interludes into pieces of art in their own right. Set to be heard for the first time by the lucky fans at their Red Rocks marathon shows before its worldwide release on October 12 2022, this album compacts all of the group’s experience in long-form jamming into a concise half-hour of pure collaborative expression that mustn’t be missed.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s album Laminated Denim is available from October 12 2022.
Words by David Harrold
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