Perhaps the most disgusting song in the King Gizzard canon, “Murder of the Universe” is the climatic conclusion to both “Han-Tyumi and the Murder of the Universe” as well as Murder of the Universe as a whole. After plugging into the Soy Protein Munt Machine, Han-Tyumi is now able to fulfill his dream of vomiting. Unlike how humans spew however, Han-Tyumi’s munt goes through his entire body, builds pressure and bursts in an explosion. His body is blown apart but the vomit keeps coming, flowing out into the public where it engulfs others. His vomit makes its way across the land by traveling through wires before running out of space and building into the sky. While the cavalcade of puke grows to a celestial level, Han-Tyumi feels a sense of euphoria, equating the experience to sex and essentially becoming a god through destruction. Han’s gray goo scenario reaches a point where the concept of time itself is ill, and then under the weight of it all, the universe collapses. Through his urge to vomit, he has brought death not just for himself but for existence itself.
The song makes a few references to the band’s discography, such as the concept of microtones and potentially “Life/Death.” It also references and is referenced by “Crumbling Castle”, and “Exploding Suns”. The song follows a Krautrock-inspired rhythm in 15/4 that builds and builds with distorted guitars, Mellotron and a heavy breakdown at the song’s conclusion.
While the rest of the Han-Tyumi suite was written out by the band on their whiteboard, “Murder of the Universe” is distinctly missing from the lineup. It is the only song on the album not credited solely to Stu. Instead, this song’s credits are split between Stu and Joey. At the end of A BRIEF HISTORY OF PLANET EARTH we get to see the band listening to the final version of the song. The band laughs after it ends, with Joey ecstatically yelling “oh my FUCKING god!” It was released on Murder of the Universe on June 23rd, 2017, with the song’s final seconds making it into a promotional video for the album.
The song appears in Jason Galea’s music video for “Han-Tyumi and the Murder of the Universe” released on April 11th, 2017. It follows the format of “Han-Tyumi, the Confused Cyborg” and “Soy Protein Munt Machine” with Han-Tyumi’s words over a variety of backgrounds.
Based on available set info, “Murder of the Universe” was first played on 2019-06-26 at Howler in Naarm (Melbourne) after the Fishing For Fishies track “Acarine.” This would be a usual combination for the song throughout 2019, although the song did sometimes join other songs from the Han-Tyumi suite to make a shortened suite of “Digital Black” > “Vomit Coffin” > “Murder of the Universe,” as on 2019-07-03. A performance of the song from 2019-10-07 would be included in the film Chunky Shrapnel, with the documentary taking its name from the song’s lyrics. This version features an overdubbed synthesizer intro which imitates the track’s bass part. That same year a performance on 2019-08-23 featured a technical error where Han-Tyumi’s narration didn’t play. This led to an abbreviated version of the song. While somewhat noteworthy on its own, this show was released as the bootlegger Live In Milwaukee ‘19, making it the only official version of the song without lyrics. This recording also features a unique line from Han-Tyumi added in post, “Hello. My name is Han-Tyumi and I fucked up the concert.”
The song would be played twice in 2020. On 2020-02-07 it was in the shortened suite while another performance on 2020-02-21 saw the addition of “Han-Tyumi, the Confused Cyborg.” After a break in 2021, it returned on 2022-05-15 in a longer suite with “Soy Protein Munt Machine.” Ever since then, this has been the song’s typical placement.