King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard release dreamy new single "Magenta Mountain"
Written by Gabriela Margarone, Featured Photo shot by Jason Galea
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have released “Magenta Mountain” off their upcoming album Omnium Gatherum. The track is a psychedelic pop dream that takes us into a whole other realm of existence. Ambrose Kenny-Smith says this on the inspiration for the track: “You know when you have a really weird vivid dream and it sticks with you like glue? One day I came into the studio and Stu was trying to write one of them down. He kept banging on about this paradise called Magenta Mountain that he had seen but none of us believed him. Every day since then he’s been still trying to convince us all that it’s real and one day he will.” King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are imaginative and dreamy, which is what makes their music so otherworldly. They are one of those bands that have a very distinct quality about them, and have the passion and drive to release album after album, mostly containing different styles and genres of writing and recording. Their upcoming album Omnium Gatherum will contain 16 tracks.
King Gizzard offers an array of different sounds and tastes throughout their discography. The group has the talent to take any genre and style and transform it into something totally unique to themselves. I am eagerly anticipating the release of Omnium Gatherum and what it has to offer. The group has taken on the sounds of jazz-rock, trippy garage rock, and everything in between. King Gizzard also has a history of releasing track after track, album after album, just barely keeping up with their creative energy. The first two singles off the upcoming album, “Magenta Mountain” and “The Dripping Tap”, set up Omnium Gatherum to be one of King Gizzard's most anticipated releases thus far. The track has been played at shows before, as shown in the music video for the track, directed by John Angus Stewart. “Magenta Mountain’ is a new track, which can always be a tricky one to film live as people are yet to have digested the song on their own,” says Stewart. “So we decided to use the normally unseen infrastructure of a gig to guide us through the performance. Giving the audience a ‘protagonist’ for a live show, in this case the watchful and sometimes forceful eye of a security guard. The brute in hi-vis clearing a path through sweaty fans is a beautiful thing to behold.” Despite the track being otherwise unknown at the time, King Gizzard has the talent to pull a crowd in and deliver a performance that is magnetizing.
The song follows what seems to be a conversation between two people, one who can see the mountain and who can’t, which echoes the inspiration behind the song. “ What do you mean, you can't see it? / My life must be a dream, a living fantasy / Disappeared in hot air, Magenta Mountain” Once we hit the fourth verse, we hear the perspective of the mountain itself. “I am tectonic / I am megalithic / My spirit runs mauve / I am the mountain of which you dream / I see you now behind the lens looking back at me” I absolutely love how weird and wonderful this song is. I especially love how we get the perspective of the mountain too, which offers a different viewpoint to the song. It has me wondering, what could the mountain represent? Perhaps it is up for interpretation; maybe it’s a utopia, a safe place, or somewhere that really doesn’t exist at all, and it’s all just a place that is longed for. Something I love the most about music and lyrics is the opportunity to understand and interpret them in your own ways.
Like most King Gizzard fans, I am super excited for Omnium Gatherum, which is shaping up to be one of the group's best bodies of work. Omnium Gatherum releases April 22nd, and is available for preorder now.