King Gizzard has released hundreds of songs since their debut single in 2010. In their discography there are tons of songs that fans have argued are “underrated.” One may argue a track like “30 Past 7” is overlooked by the weirdo swarm, while another might say “Superposition” hasn’t gotten its due, the next may say it’s time for “Nein” to get some love. Yet there’s one thing that these songs have in common — they appeared on an album. Whether it’s an official studio release or a bootleg demo compilation, the material is part of some collection of material that we can hold in high regard. Even vinyl exclusive tracks like “Dawn of Eternal Night” made it to a record. It’s a genuinely rare thing for an original song by this band to not be widely accessible, yet there is one. A track that is out there and sometimes makes its presence known but lingers in the background. A specter of a song, always floating around but never fully noticed or recognized. Fittingly, the song is titled “The Wholly Ghost” — a short, quirky song that stands as their only non-album B-side.
The song’s earliest sighting was on 2014-02-09 at the St. Kilda Festival in Naarm (Melbourne). After a long set of soon to be I’m In Your Mind Fuzz debuts (based on our knowledge), “The Wholly Ghost” made its way in. Over the next few months the song would appear on the band’s setlists though it’s unclear how common it was. The song made it to America for King Gizzard’s first U.S. show at the Austin Psych Fest on 2014-05-02, which would end up being an important date for the song though we’ll get back to that in a later section. A performance of the song on 2014-06-12 would be included in BOOTLEG HOLIDAY FROM HELL. This is the last known appearance of the song. While mentioned by the band that the song might be played again during the Chunky Shrapnel Reddit AMA, the song has yet to reappear.
On September 16th the music video for the song “Cellophane” was released. Around the same time a folder on the file hosting service Mediafire received some files and was linked under the video. One of these files was the single for “Cellophane” featuring a studio version of “The Wholly Ghost,” now stylized as “The Wholly Ghost (Speeds Up).” The song fits right in with the Mind Fuzz material and features the band with heavy tape effects. The effects shift the pitch up from the key of F to G, and sped up tape towards the end of the track brings the song to the key of G# before ending at C. The song’s lyrics (written by Stu) are straightforward—it’s about wanting to meet a ghost. A 7” single of “Cellophane/The Wholly Ghost” was released on November 17th, after which“The Wholly Ghost” fell into obscurity. The song would be released on streaming services as part of the “Cellophane” single but is region locked so that fans in the United States cannot access it. When asked about the region lock, Lucas jokingly said “it doesn’t exist.” It wasn’t until the release of the official bootleg Live at Levitation ‘14 on December 11th, 2021 that the band would show the song off again.
There has been some speculation around the song in the years since its disappearance mainly centering around why the song never made it to an album. While the band has not stated anything concrete, Reddit user PLASTOSPLEEN investigated the waveforms of I’m In Your Mind Fuzz and found that the song was most likely intended to be on the album between “Satan Speeds Up” and “Her and I (Slow Jam 2).” And if you wonder if Stu sings “wholly” or “slowly,” Stu clarified it himself on Twitter.
Getting your hands on the studio version of “The Wholly Ghost” isn’t necessarily hard but it can trickier than most. While it does appear on streaming services, it is region locked and may not appear for you depending on location. YouTube uploads exist but are in lower quality than the actual song file. The Mediafire folder still exists but it’s unclear how long the link will stay up. The song was uploaded to the Internet Archive and will last there until the page is deleted or the site goes down. As for obtaining a vinyl copy, be prepared to spend a chunk of money. According to the music database and marketplace Discogs the median price for the 7” is $225 USD/$353 AUD/€213 EUR. A test pressing of the single also exists but it has never been sold and is probably worth much more. While CD singles exist for “Cellophane,” they do not contain “The Wholly Ghost.” The only accessible version of the track is the version heard on Live at Levitation ‘14, which documents the band’s first show in the United States.