Tizita is a scale and genre found in Ethiopian music. The word itself means memory, nostalgia, or longing, themes that are strongly reflected in the music. Artists such as Mahmoud Ahmed, Hailu Mergia and Mulatu Astatke would reflect on the past in their work to emotional results. It was a pathway to memories drifting away in hopes that you can truly go back and live those moments again (described beautifully by Makda Teshome here). King Gizzard was no doubt influenced by Ethiopian music. In a press release for Sketches of Brunswick East, Stu said of the album’s inspiration “we were listening to compilations of Ethiopian music from the 1960s and 70s a lot.”
Their song “Tezeta” is also about remembering what once was, though in a much more surreal sense. Dealing with spirituality, “Tezeta” follows someone who feels changed after a realization that the universe isn’t real but in fact a hologram. The song features an appearance from Han-Tyumi, the cyborg first heard on Murder of the Universe. Here, he talks to characters in the song and sings a handful of lyrics which paint him as a God. Specifically, Han-Tyumi claims “I am that which I am,” a quote taken from the Hebrew Bible (Exodus 3:14) spoken by God when responding to Moses’ question about God’s name. This phrase also appears in the alternate lyrics for “Han-Tyumi, the Confused Cyborg.” As for memory, Han-Tyumi asks the followers if they remember his “altered plan,” yet another callback to Murder of the Universe. Ultimately “Tezeta” serves as a loving homage to Ethiopian music while containing much of Gizzard’s musical and conceptual identity. The result is a fan favorite from Sketches of Brunswick East.
A demo for the song (released on Demos Vol. 2: Music To Eat Bananas To) is entirely instrumental with a drum machine playing a bossa nova beat and wah wah-heavy guitar playing the chords over it. The first chorus goes on longer than the final version. The verse is the same as it appears on Sketches of Brunswick East. The studio version was played by Alex Brettin (organ), Cavs (drum kit 1/cowbell/bongo), Cook (electric guitar), Eric (drum kit 2), Joey (glass marimbas/shaker/acoustic guitar/synthesizers/vocals/electric guitar), Lucas (electric piano) and Stu (bass/flute/acoustic guitar). The song was released on August 18th, 2017.
The first known performance of the song was on 2018-11-24 at The Governor Hindmarsh Hotel in Adelaide. The song would see at least two other appearances in 2018 with the last of the year being on 2018-12-01 as part of Gizzfest. 2018 versions did not feature the chorus lyrics or the Han-Tyumi bridge lyrics, opting for instrumentals passages instead. On 2019-06-26 the song was brought back to setlists to be played a handful of times in 2019. This time the missing lyrics had been added back outside of the “I am true perspective” lines. While Joey would yell out Han’s lines, Stu would take the place of Han-Tyumi’s followers, either repeating the lines (2019-09-02), or putting his own in, such as “what’s that Joey?” (2019-10-07). Since a performance at the TivoliVredenburg Ronda in Utrecht, “Tezeta” has only appeared a few times. These performances feature the “I am true perspective lines” but don’t feature Stu doing the quotes.