King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announce their 27th album Phantom Island, out June 13th, and share its lead single “Deadstick.” If you’re worried that, 15 years and 26 albums into their epic quest, polymorphous psychedelic voyagers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard might be running out of new frontiers to traverse, then let their latest opus set your mind to rest. The band’s second release on their own (p)doom records label, Phantom Island sees our intrepid heroes add a new dimension to their ever-evolving songcraft, embracing the symphonic and embroidering their tangles of lysergic riff and melody with strings and horns and woodwind.
The roots of the album can be traced back to the group’s legendary show at the Hollywood Bowl in June 2023. Gizz met some members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic backstage who urged them to take part in an annual series where the orchestra plays alongside rock and pop acts. Fast-forward to 2024, and the Gizz are hunkered down in their clubhouse, plugged into tiny practice amps and choogling to their hearts’ content. The results of these sessions yield that year’s Aria-nominated Flight b741. But these sessions yielded ten further songs that didn’t quite fit the Flight b741 vibe, and which, Mackenzie says, “were harder to finish. Musically, they needed a little more time and space and thought.”
Quickly, the group’s collective mind leapt to 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,” Mackenzie says. He reached out to friend, British historical keyboardist, conductor and arranger Chad Kelly. “He brings this wealth of musical awareness to his chameleon-like arrangements,” Mackenzie says. “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. Lead single “Deadstick” puts Kelly’s elaborate orchestrations on display, raising the graceful and complex song to the sublime, transforming it into a giddy jazz-rock riot.
On the song’s accompanying video, director Guy Tyzack says: “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 midflight so I decided to have a massive plane made out of cardboard crash land into a beautiful location. The song is big and chaotic so then I went about casting swing dancers and eccentric extras to fill the landscape.”
If Flight b741 was an album of rambunctious adventure stories, Phantom Island picks up that thread, spinning its tales of quests and piracy out into the stars. But it’s a more interior album than its predecessor, more melancholy – more “introverted”, Mackenzie says. Sure, these are tales of high adventure in galaxies far, far away, but the focus is less on the action, and more on the interior lives of those adventurers, reflecting the kind of insight Gizz have gleaned from 15 years of travelling the world and leaving their homes behind to take their music to the people. There’s a wiser, more mature, more sensitive Gizz at play here, questioning their place within the universe, their responsibilities, the ties that bind. “When I was younger, I was just interested in freaking people out,” admits Mackenzie, “but as I get older, I’m much more interested in connecting with people.”
King Gizzard will embark on their 2025 Phantom Island orchestral tour this July. Featuring a different accompanying 29-piece orchestra in each city – and ably led by conductor & music director Sarah Hicks – the tour will see the group perform with some of the country’s most renowned ensembles, before concluding with Field of Vision, the band’s own 3-day residency camping event at Meadow Creek in Buena Vista, CO. This represents the band’s only U.S. tour of 2025, so don’t miss out on your fix for a full calendar year. A full list of dates are below with tickets available here.
PHANTOM ISLAND TRACKLIST
1. Phantom Island
2. Deadstick
3. Lonely Cosmos
4. Eternal Return
5. Panpsych
6. Spacesick
7. Aerodynamic
8. Sea of Doubt
9. Silent Spirit
10. Grow Wings and Fly
KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD TOUR DATES
(New dates in bold)
Sun. May 18 – Tue. May 20 – Lisbon, PT @ Coliseu dos Recreios *
Fri. May 23 – Sun. May 25 – Barcelona, ES @ Poble Espanyol *
Thu. May 29 – Sat. May 31 – Vilnius, LT @ Lukiškės Prison 2.0 ^
Wed. June 4 – Fri. June 6 – Athens, GR @ Lycabettus Theatre City of Athens #
Sun. June 8 – Tue. June 10 – Plovdiv, BG @ Ancient Theatre ^
Fri. June 13 – Sun. June 15 – Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival
Mon. July 28 – Philadelphia, PA @ TD Pavilion At The Mann (w/ Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia) $
Wed. July 30 – New Haven, CT @ Westville Music Bowl (w/ Orchestra of St. Luke’s) $
Fri. August 1 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium (w/ Orchestra of St. Luke’s) $
Sat. August 2 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium (Rock ‘n Roll Show) $
Mon. August 4 – Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion
(w/ National Symphony Orchestra) $
Wed. August 6 – Highland Park, IL @ Ravinia Festival (w/ Chicago Philharmonic) $
Fri. August 8 – Colorado Springs, CO @ Ford Amphitheater (w/ Colorado Symphony) $
Sun. August 10 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl (w/ Hollywood Bowl Orchestra) $
Mon. August 11 – San Diego, CA @ The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park (w/ San Diego Symphony Orchestra) $
Fri. August 15 – Sun. August 17 – Buena Vista, CO @ FIELD OF VISION at Meadow Creek %
Fri. October 31 – Manchester, UK @ Aviva Studios (Rave Set)
Sat. November 1 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton (Rave Set)
Sun. November 2 – London, UK @ Electric Brixton (Rave Set)
Tue. November 4 – London, UK @ Royal Albert Hall (w/ Covent Garden Sinfonia)
Wed. November 5 – Paris, FR @ La Seine Musicale (w/ L’Orchestre Lamoureux)
Thu. November 6 – Tilburg, NL @ 013 (Rave Set)
Fri. November 7 – Den Bosch, NL @ MAINSTAGE ( w/ Sinfonia Rotterdam)
Sun. November 9 – Gdansk, PL @ Inside Seaside Festival
(w/ The Baltic Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra)
Mon. November 10 – Berlin, DE @ Columbiahalle (Rave Set)
Tue. November 11 – Prague, CZ @ SaSaZu (Rave Set)
Wed. November 12 – Vienna, AT @ Gasometer (Rave Set)
Fri. November 14 – Copenhagen, DK @ Poolen (Rave Set)
Sat. November 15 – Gothenburg, SE @ Gothenburg Film Studios (Rave Set)
* w/ Etran De L’Aïr
^ w/ King Stingray
# w/ King Stingray, DJ Crenshaw
$ w/ DJ Crenshaw
% w/ Babe Rainbow, Gaye Su Akyol, King Stingray, Mannequin Pussy, Memo PST, Pearl Charles, The Mystery Lights, The Songs For Kids Band!, White Fence, DJ Crenshaw
Photo Credit: Maclay Heriot
TheWaster.com | Phantom Island
4.15.2025
