Blastophaga psenes (or fig wasps) live pretty interesting, though admittedly a bit disgusting, lives. These wasps are really small and only live a few days, but what makes them unique is that their lives are dependent on figs, hence the name. They lay eggs within the flower of the fig, and when the male larvae hatch, they fertilize the females while they are still growing, dig a hole for them to escape through, and die. After scavenging for pollen, the female finds another fig and the cycle continues. To make it clear, you’re not eating dead fig wasps when you eat a fig, but I don’t blame you if you are a bit weirded out after that. Gizzard makes it more disgusting by asking this question: what if you bit into a fig and there was a big fig wasp? “Big Fig Wasp” is the second track on 2016’s infinitely looping album Nonagon Infinity and keeps the high energy going through the first side. The song centers on these insects and portrays them as godless creatures that the song’s protagonist accidentally eats, adding to the distorted soundscape and world of the album.
A demo for the song (released on Demos Vol 4. Music to Die To) outlines the song in its early form. The song is completely instrumental with its main riffs intact, albeit picked differently. The rest of the song however isn’t there. An unused section first appears at 0:52 where the band accents two different chords. Another new section (potentially the original verse) first appears at 1:17. Past that point the various breakdowns and “Robot Stop” reprise/outro are completely missing.
While most of Nonagon Infinity was recorded at Daptone Records in Brooklyn, New York, “Big Fig Wasp” was mainly recorded at A Secret Location in Melbourne by Paul Maybury, with vocals recorded by Michael Badger. Badger stated that the material recorded at A Secret Location was notably higher quality from a recording standpoint compared to Daptone with “a lot more top end.” This may have been due to the fact that the band redid “Big Fig Wasp.” According to an interview for goetiamedia, the band recorded the track twice because it “needed a bit more love.”
The first time the song was heard was on Nonagon Infinity itself, released on April 29th, 2016. It borrows tonally from “Robot Stop” before it, and brings back the song for a reprise at the end before transitioning into “Gamma Knife.” Like the rest of the songs on the album it was intended to have its own music video, though details on the plans for “Big Fig Wasp” have not been released. Wasps are prominent in the video for “Robot Stop” and a Wasp Man would appear in the video for “People-Vultures” as well as ПАДАЮЩИЙ СНЕГ.
The first known live performance of the song was on 2016-05-04 at the Mercy Lounge in Nashville, Tennessee where it appeared after “Robot Stop” > “Hot Water” at the beginning of the set. This would be one of the song’s most common placements moving forward, same with “Robot Stop” > “Big Fig Wasp.” No matter what, the song was used when playing the first section of Nonagon Infinity and hasn’t been used outside of that purpose. It didn’t matter if it was a festival or a radio show, “Big Fig Wasp” was a part of the Nonagon suites that opened the shows. In 2017 however, the song would be removed from the line up with the suite typically “Robot Stop” > “Gamma Knife.” On 2018-02-18 the song would come back after a ninety-nine show gap (based on current setlist knowledge) to be played throughout the year. Before the year was done, a slowed down version of the song would appear in ПАДАЮЩИЙ СНЕГ where a Wasp Man also appears. As setlists became more varied in 2019, the song would again fall out of favor and became an occasional thing rather than an essential track. It was played once in 2021 during the Princess Theatre residency for “Garage Rock Night” (2021-12-22) and brought out a handful of times since.