Nonagon Infinity - King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (2016)

I like to meet music on its own terms. My personal view is that if i’m reading a review and they say “this should have been…” then I pretty much stop reading. At that point, it’s become about the person writing the review and not the art itself. So when I listen to something, I try to hear what is actually going on, rather than projecting my own likes and dislikes onto it. You can’t do that entirely, of course. There’s music I just don’t like. But you can separate whether you like it or not from the act of listening and sometimes that space can inform you of something you weren’t expecting.

All this is to say that I don’t want to make false claims about Gizz (as their stans call them). I’m sure there are people who think they’re next-level geniuses. I’m sure there are others who think they’re dilettantes, dabbling in “sonic exploration” rather than actually getting good at any particular thing, or forming coherent thoughts. I figure the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. They’re a bunch of very talented and inventive musicians, and they make music that is infuriatingly opaque. It’s simple and straightforward but very hard to pin down and describe. You could say that it lacks much substance, with beats and grooves over musical development. Or you could say that this is, in itself, a certain sort of invention, and that haters are looking for the wrong thing. This is a band that embraces the weirdness, and doesn’t particularly care if you’re on board or not.

Nonagon Infinity is widely considered the best thing the band has recorded, and it’s true at least that it seems like a pretty pure statement of what they’re trying to achieve. The album functions almost like a theme and variations, with a lot melodic and rhythmic material getting recycled multiple times. Then again, one could also argue that they just don’t have much to say, so they repeat themselves. Each of the tracks runs into the next one, and each track has multiple distinct sections, so it’s difficult to tell where one track actually turns into the next. This might be to make it a seamless experience, or it might be because nobody wanted to hit stop on the recording. I don’t know the particulars of how the band record–if it’s improvised in the room, or composed and then layered in the studio. If it’s the latter, it’s rough and not fully formed. If the former, it’s extremely inventive and spontaneous. Or maybe it’s one thing trying to sound like the other, or maybe it’s highbrow masquerading as lowbrow, or maybe it just rocks, and maybe that’s enough.

tracks I liked:

Gamma Knife - a little more slowed down and coherent than the first few tracks

Mr. Beat

Wah Wah