Album of the Day: Paper Mâché Dream Balloon - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Paper Mâché Dream Balloon (2015) - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Work is a 50-60 minute commute. No carpool. It's been this way for years, and I generally don't mind it. It's time for consuming coffee and content--podcasts, audiobooks, plenty of music. This whole time, I've considered burning through someone's intimidating discography--an album a day, in order. Dylan was on the docket, but I never made it very far. Sun Ra is an impossibility. It's got to be something to keep me awake. Something that will serve the vehicular ADHD that worsens every aching year.

Enter Australia's King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. After two weeks of jams, I've arrived at today's album: 2015's Paper Mâché Dream Balloon, their seventh studio album in a four-year time frame. (They'd come to frequently outdo themselves, 2017 and 2023 would both see five albums. And let's not forget the "Gizztober" where they released three albums in one month.)

This one is unlike anything they'd recorded up to that point. Hell, the first song ("Sense"), and one I queued up three times today, prominently features a clarinet. It's a smooth slow head nod of a song, followed by the flute-filled "Bone," which ups the tempo. "Trapdoor" has a creepy repetition with a stabby flute plopped in the middle of the sub three-minute runtime. "The Bitter Boogie" is bluesy. The high-pitched weirdo vocals of "Cold Cadaver" don't mix well with an oddly cutesy-sounding song. It's the type of structure that finds better success on 2021's Butterfly 3000, their album I've played the most. It's all good, though. I've already returned to "Cadaver" and will continue replay the entire album.

Track for monthly playlist: "Sense"

Listen/Purchase: https://kinggizzard.bandcamp.com/album/paper-m-ch-dream-balloon

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