King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard has already released two albums in 2022 and has three more on the way before the end of the year, but the ever-prolific Australian group has gifted fans with two additional surprise treats today (July 15).
The third and fourth volumes of Gizzard’s Bandcamp-only Demos series round up 26 previously unreleased cuts spanning 2011-2021, and the band is once again inviting fans to bootleg them in any way they choose.
“A refresher to anyone who’s forgotten or is new here: ‘bootleg’ in Gizzard-speak means anyone is allowed to make copies of this album,” frontman Stu Mackenzie wrote on Instagram. “If you’re a label you can release it like any other release. If you’re not a label you can go create a label right now and sell this album to whoever you want. Or if you just wanna make some tapes, CDs, 7″s or whatevs for fun, YOU CAN. You don’t need our permission or anything — just go to the bootleg section on our Web site to find everything you need.”
Gizzard’s only rule is that fans send their homemade bootlegs to the band to make available in their Gizzverse online emporium. “Thanks to everyone for getting involved in this bizarre and dope experiment,” Mackenzie says, adding that “a bunch more bootlegs [are] dropping” on Gizzverse in the days to come.
The new editions of Demos offer fascinating work-in-progress versions of songs that later appeared on proper Gizzard albums such as Murder of the Universe, Infest the Rat’s Nest and the recent Omnium Gatherum, instrumentals and other fragments and ephemera. The two distinct demos for the 18-minute Omnium opener “The Dripping Tap”point toward the sound and approach for two of the next three Gizzard albums, which Mackenzie recently told SPIN were built from hours-long jams and then pieced together after the fact.
Gizzard returns to the road July 29 in Portlaw, Ireland and will play some of its biggest U.S. shows to date this fall, including three nights at Red Rocks outside Denver and an Oct. 21 concert at New York’s 13,000-capacity Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. Band members Ambrose Kenny-Smith and Cook Craig will also tour North America this fall with their side project The Murlocs, whose new album, Rapscallion, arrives Sept. 16 from ATO Records.
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