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How to get into King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard? Many hear a small sample of this incredible band, but are immediately turned off when faced with what to listen to next out of such a high volume of material. Even experienced fans may not be familiar with every release, where each has a particular history and significance unique from the rest.

If you just want to dive straight in with something, start with this album. If that one doesn't work for you:

This is the starting point of the Gizzverse Guide. Our releases catalogue contains every King Gizzard release, each with an introductory blurb, objective information, and links that you can use to navigate to the next listening suggestion based on what you already know or liked about the music. If you have already heard an album and don’t know where to go from there, navigate to it from that page.
If you are completely new to the band, and don’t know where to start, check out some tips:

Chronologically

Listening through a discography chronologically is the tried and true way of getting into a band, as it is the way that fans who have followed the band for the longest amount of time got to experience each release. While the sheer volume of albums may feel daunting, if you are not connecting with an album during the first few songs, in most cases you can simply skip to the next release for a completely new sound or evolution. Their first album is 12 Bar Bruise; but if you have heard of the band by some of their newest material, then perhaps starting at the current newest album and working backwards may also work.

Essentials

While always debatable, there is a path of ‘essential’ albums that most effectively show the development of the band in sound, material, and stories — that members of the band have also agreed best represent their core musical drive. Many agree that the first of these essential albums is I’m in Your Mind Fuzz, the epoch of the Gizzverse and the start of a 'series' which is thereafter referred to as the ‘Gizzverse albums’ in the prompts.
If that or the next ones don't immediately strike you, try seeking out some of the more diverse sounds with the rest of the information lower down.

Tone

Pick an album by title and cover. Each record has a distinct personality that is well conveyed in its title and artwork. Murder of the Universe is as dark and despondent as it looks and sounds, Paper Mâché Dream Balloon is as whimsical sounding as the scene on the front, so pick one that jumps out at you.

Visuals

If something isn’t quite ‘clicking’, the band express a lot of personality through visual imagery. They have worked consistently with visual artist Jason Galea since their first album, who has been instrumental in developing their very strong, distinct visual identity to the point where they consider him a de-facto member of the group.
The music video for their track Rattlesnake is what instantly made me a fan after years of the band just being a funny name on the radio with an occasional stand-out song. Nonagon Infinity and Butterfly 3000 are albums with lots of high quality visual work behind them also. The band have many great music videos all available on their YouTube Channel.

Live Material

We are currently in a renaissance of KGLW live performance, and the 2022 NA tour is what gathered together the fans that created this site. After two years of paused touring, the band have bottled up their energy and returned in the style of a 'jam-band' placing particular emphasis on offering unique live shows with sequences and jams you can't get from the studio recordings.
The band have provided permission for uploading of eligible audience tapes to archive.org, qualifying them for an official section here where the biggest selection of complete, high quality recordings are available to listen to.
Archive.org is also host to the King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard "Tape" Archive, a community archive established before the 'official' one. This is now home to recordings that don't satisfy the requirements of the official archive (lossy, incomplete), and a wider variety of media such as tour posters.

If you are looking for particular times or locations, check out our setlists page. We have links to listen available where applicable (for these, look out for little Giza, the green guy with the sign who also designates that the setlist info is fully verified), but for the most comprehensive selection of King Gizzard live recordings anywhere, check out the King Gizzard Live Spreadsheet by Reddit user u/yebrent aka Gizzhenge.
The band also have the Official Bootlegger program available, where several mixed soundboard recordings are available for anyone to freely publish their own editions of (with some restrictions), and to stream on DSPs listed under the artist name 'bootleg gizzard'.
There are also a couple of traditionally published live albums available, such as this one.

Their several live in-studio performances at KEXP are also known for drawing in fans:

Playlists

While the material is most rewarding heard all the way through as intended, you don’t need to experience every album like that right away. Some don’t have overarching concepts, and many are split into shorter suites or medleys. Some songs from different releases even belong together. Murder of the Nonagon Fuzz (re-upload) is an impressive fan made album mashup that uses only songs with accompanying music videos, seamlessly connecting five different projects.

Here are some other general playlist links:

Criticism

While music critics and fan bases always clash, due credit for Pitchfork, NME, and Anthony Fantano at The Needle Drop for (mostly) giving KGLW a fair shot.

Other Guides

This is not the first or last dedicated guide for getting into King Gizzard.
It was orignally developed on the Boiler Rhapsody music blog and discretely hosted there while sourcing collaborators. Once Boiler Rhapsody's editor/author (hi) found kglw.net, it was quickly realised that both projects were suited for each other and merged.

Album flowcharts are common in the fan base. Though clunky to use and constantly out of date, the idea retains an attractive simplicity. Here is the most common one.

Get Into Gizz is a simple, dedicated website that uses the flowchart principle.

Words by W.B.T.G. Slinger

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