11. Alternative Music

From Jack White to Maynard James Keenan, Noah and Justin
discuss their favorite artists of the Alternative genre. 





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King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard-Flying Microtonal Banana / An Album Review

    Today we are looking at an album that I had recommended to me quite a while ago but just never got around to writing a review of. I listened to this album multiple times over the last months but couldn’t ever real figure out how I wanted to talk about it. But I’ve decided today to quit putting it off and finally do a review of King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard’s album Flying Microtonal Banana. If that name isn’t a dead giveaway, these guys are a pretty weird band. Featuring seven members with three guitarists, two drummers and a bassist as well as interludes of synth, piano, harmonica and flute.

    For a little background on this band I highly recommend a Premier Guitar article entitled Microtonal Madmen where Stu Mackenzie and Joey Walker (two of the guitarists) are interviewed. To sum it up, King Gizzard started as a jam band among friends who played in various bands and the seven man band consists of the guys who stayed and made it their main band. Flying Microtonal Banana is their 9th studio album and features the interesting gimmick of using microtonal instruments, that is instruments with extra notes not commonly found in western music.

    To better explain this I have a few diagrams I’ve made to demonstrate the difference between Mackenzie’s Banana guitar and a standard one.

The Banana has six extra frets that are placed halfway between where two normal frets on a guitar would be creating “in between” quarter notes.

These quarter notes are not typically heard in Western music but are very common in Eastern music such as traditional Arabic, Indian, Japanese and Chinese music. Because of their association with Eastern music, quarter tones have a very exotic sound to those who are familiar with Western music.

    Getting to the album itself, it is way more melodic and enjoyable to listen to than I first anticipated. Many of these type of weird for the sake of weirdness bands cross over into unlistenable territory, but as weird as King Gizzard get they are always making music. I’m not 100% sure of the recording process for this album, but I have to believe that at the very least the demos for this album came from hitting from record and jamming. Every track has the feel of clips from a 70’s psychedelic rock band’s jam session. The mix of traditional western rock conventions with the Eastern tinged sounds brought out by the microtonal instruments creates a really cool sound throughout this album.

    Stand out tracks in my opinion are the opening track Rattlesnake, Open Water and Nuclear Fusion. Rattlesnake is one of the most straightforward songs on the album, reminding me a bit of a lighter take on a Doom Metal song, featuring heavy repetition and subtle shifts of the main riffs over it’s 7 minute length. Open Water is driven by an Egyptian/Middle Eastern sounding drone and a vocal drone that is doubled by something that sounds like a Sitar. Along with the Eastern elements on Open Water there is also an extremely tight and dynamic rhythm section, with the twin percussionists and bassist doing an amazing job at grounding the otherwise floaty track.

    Nuclear Fusion is about halfway between Rattlesnake and Open Water, being a fairly straightforward Alt rock track but still having those heavy Eastern sounds. The drumming is also superb on this track, with plenty of delicious fills in the transitions of this track.

    This is an album that is best experienced as an album rather than as a collection of tracks. I highly recommend just putting this on and letting it wash over you, just don’t expect to be productive as some of the dronier bits become a very relaxing wall of sound after a while. If you’re looking for something different or weird give this one a listen, it will be well worth your time.

I'm Only Joking KONGOS: Song Review

    Kicking off a week of haunting, spooky and otherwise dark reviews leading up to our Halloween special this weekend is the KONGOS track I’m Only Joking. KONGOS are an Alt Rock band from South Africa made up of 4 brothers who use a mix of African tribal drumming, epic slide guitar and mastery of bouncy accordion riffing to create their sound. They had a huge hit with the single Come With Me Now off of their Lunatic album and a minor hit with the track I Wanna Know from the same album. While these tracks had a mainstream Alt Rock sound to them, my personal favorite track was a darker and more mysterious song entitled I’m Only Joking.

    I’m Only Joking uses those tribal drum patterns I mentioned earlier to conjure up the feeling and imagery of a Voodoo ceremony while the Accordion brings to mind an insane carnival. The dark and mysterious vibe of this song is helped out by the eerie vocal performance of the verses and the conspiracy theory and mystic ramblings of the lyrics. The whiplash from the very dark and serious imagery of the verses to the singer insisting that he’s only joking as a way to mess with the listener only adds to the carnival theme, portraying the singer as a carny telling ghost stories to scare patrons.

    As the song stretches on, it builds to a crescendo of insanity on the noise filled bridge of the song. This track overall works well as a sequel to Come With Me Now’s quest for freedom and losing one’s mind in debauchery and fun. Even the bit of the chorus where the singer states he’s just saying a “...crazy little thing he read.” fits in with Come With Me Now, where he made the comment that “I open my mouth and it’s something I’ve read.” Thus in many ways the insanity of this song can be seen as the follow up to the letting go and loss of control in Come With Me Now.

    Regardless of the way that this track fits into KONGOS’ discography it is an awesome and eerie song. The madness on this track is so much fun and always makes me feel like a horror movie villain when I listen to it. The energy is infectious and powerful and the various changes throughout the track make it one of my favorites.