How to get into King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard? Many hear a small sample of this incredible band, but are immediately turned off when faced with what to listen to next out of such a high volume of material. Even experienced fans may not be familiar with every release, where each has a particular history and significance unique from the rest.

If you just want to dive straight in, start with this album. Otherwise:

This is the starting point of the Gizzverse Guide, our catalogue contains every King Gizzard release. Each has an instroductory blurb, objective information, and links that you can use to navigate to the next listening suggestion based on what you already know or liked about the music.

If you have already heard an album and don’t know where to go from there, navigate to it from the releases page.
If you are completely new to the band, and don’t know where to start, check out some tips:

Essentials

While always debatable, there is a path of ‘essential’ albums that most effectively show the core sounds, material, and stories that the band developed around. Many agree that I’m in Your Mind Fuzz is the first of these essential albums, and the solid epoch-point of the Gizzverse. These albums are thereafter referred to as the ‘Gizzverse albums’ in the prompts through the guide.

Chronologically

Listening through a discography chronologically is the tried and true way of getting into a band, as it is the way that fans who have followed the band for the longest amount of time got to experience each release. While the sheer volume of albums may feel daunting, if you are not connecting with an album during the first few songs, in most cases you can simply skip to the next release for a completely new sound or evolution.

Their first album is 12 Bar Bruise; but if you have heard of the band by some of their newest material, then perhaps starting at the current newest album and working backwards may also work.

Tone

Pick an album by title and cover. Each record has a distinct personality that is well conveyed in its title and artwork. Murder of the Universe is as dark and despondent as it looks and sounds, Paper Mâché Dream Balloon is as whimsical sounding as the scene on the front, so pick one that jumps out at you.

Visuals

If something isn’t quite ‘clicking’, try some of the visual work as well. The music video for their track Rattlesnake is what instantly made the author a fan after years of the band just being a funny name on the radio with an occasional stand-out song. Nonagon Infinity and Butterfly 3000 are albums with lots of high quality visual work behind them also. The band have many great music videos all available on their Youtube Channel.

Playlists

While the material is most rewarding heard all the way through as intended, you don’t need to experience every album like that right away. Some don’t have overarching concepts, and many are split into shorter suites or medleys. Some songs from different releases even belong together. Murder of the Nonagon Fuzz (re-upload) is an impressive fan made album mashup that uses only songs with accompanying music videos, seamlessly connecting five different projects.

Here are some other general playlist links:

  • [Heavy songs](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7BfZwU7yVZrmX9XmwkJbaJ?si=54b411c741d24f7f](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4A0kJxI8Cp233goDvNtYcQ) (Spotify)
  • Chill songs
  • [Essential songs](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/77cYJha9ttoOpZkZQOCid6?si=950dd84376a14818](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4gRWO2kQAJSQKvdii58XJY) (Spotify)
  • King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Gizzverse Odyssey (Digital only Official Bootlegger fan-made compilation)

Criticism

While music critics and fan bases always clash, due credit for Pitchfork, NME, and Anthony Fantano at The Needle Drop for (mostly) giving KGATLW a fair shot.

Live Material

We are currently in a renaissance of KGATLW live performance, and the 2022 NA tour is what gathered together the fans that created this site. After two years of paused touring, the band have bottled up their energy an returned with the style of a ‘jam-band’ placing particular emphasis on offering unique live shows with sequences and sections you can’t hear in the studio recordings.
The band have provided permission for uploading of audience tapes to archive.org where the biggest selection of recordings are available to listen to.
If you are looking for particular times or locations, check out our set-lists page for the most complete and consistent catalogue available.
The band also have the Official Bootlegger program available, where several mixed soundboard recordings are available for anyone to freely publish their own editions of (with limits).
There are also a couple of traditionally published live albums available

Their several live in-studio performances at KEXP are also known for drawing in fans:

This is not the first or last dedicated guide for getting into King Gizzard.
It was orignally developed on the Boiler Rhapsody music blog and discretely hosted there while sourcing collaborators. Once Boiler Rhapsody’s editor/author of the guide (hi) found kglw.net, it was quickly discovered that both projects were suited for each other and merged.

Album flowcharts are common in the fan base. Though clunky to use and constantly out of date, the idea retains an attractive simplicity. Here is the most common one.

Get Into Gizz is a simple, dedicated website using the flowchart principle.

Ball State Daily’s choose your own adventure discography guide, is an (out of date) non-interactive written guide.

Or try a video, such as Mic The Snare’s Deep Discog Dive, or Middle 8’s introduction.