![]() Butterfly 3000 filters a fresh range of influences, and is the net result of sharing simple ideas-mainly modular synth loops-in lockdown. The band’s deep abiding love of ’70s rock titans like Yes and Hawkwind has never stood in the way of breaking new ground. What their Reddit-dwelling diehards refer to as the “Gizzverse” now allows for some serious self-restraint. But the big curveball here goes beyond structure and form: Album number 18 was recorded in the band’s homes during the pandemic, and trades psych-rock blitzes for a finely woven sprawl of synth programming and MIDI sequences. ![]() Butterfly 3000 flips the script by offering up one 44-minute suite, written mainly in a major key, and created with the intent to be listened to as one continuous piece. On albums like Nonagon Infinity and Flying Microtonal Banana, they created diversion after diversion, cloaking waypoints for songs deep inside riffs and motifs. For all their forward motion, the Melbourne band specializes in a certain mazy non-linearity. It might be realms apart from “Solsbury Hill” and much of their own catalog, but the dreamy ease of Butterfly 3000 makes the Gabrielian promised land of “happy music” seem close at hand. In 2010, Peter Gabriel shared a theory that many artists have held since time immemorial: “Happy music that is genuinely joyful is probably the hardest music to write.” That same year, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard embarked on a journey of building a self-contained universe of demented prog and acid-fried freak-outs.
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