Releases > King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard > Flying Microtonal Banana

Look into the sky and see the pattern
Reflecting in your eye from a distance
Mirroring the stars are the atoms
Mixing up like a cocktail

Volume 1 of ‘Explorations into Microtonal Tuning’. Named after a custom yellow Flying V gifted to Stu by a luthier friend, who made the instrument with a banana shaped head stock and custom fret board including extra frets for microtonal scales based on the Bağlama. This Turkish folk instrument was the fourth (and would be the last) chosen in a project to learn a new instrument every year.

Now with a more familiar platform, a half complete Bağlama based folk album was scrapped, and the band customised their own set of instruments to accompany the microtones of the flying microtonal banana. This Anatolian sound shines through another psychedelic Krautrock inspired album that instantly became a fan favourite with its theme of cosmic-horror environmentalism.

What to listen to next:

• If you want Volume 2 of ‘Explorations into Microtonal Tuning’
• If you want more ‘non-Western’ sounding instruments
• If you want more environmental tones but heavier and more apocalyptic
• If you want more environmentalism but less stylised and less fictionalised

Album Credits

Flying Microtonal Banana - ℗ & © 2017 Flightless Records - Used by permission.

This album is for Zak and Jamie
Jamie who inspired me to pursue the bağlama as well as turkish and persian music;
Zak who generously built the flying microtonal banana. You guys rule. Love Stu XOXOXO

NOTHING is sacred in our western music. Over hundreds of years our music de-evolved to feature less emphasis on rhythm and more attention to harmonic IMPERFECTION.

Our ancestors endeavoured to create a system based on perfect 5ths yet we end up with a series of severely out of tune 3rds and wonky harmonies. Bach composed in something closer to JUST intonation.

Modern pianos are tuned SHARP at the top and FLAT at the bottom. Violinists INSTINCTUALLY bow perfect harmonies in orchestral arrangements.

Barbershop quartets INSTINCTUALLY sing perfect harmonic 3rds and 7ths. They are right. We are wrong. TRUST your instincts.

We continually dumbed down the rhythmic complexity in favour of harmonic ENTANGLEMENT. Harmonies that are OUT OF TUNE. Nothing is sacred! And neither is this album. 24-TET EVERYBODY. Wronger than wrong.

• Recorded by Stu Mackenzie at Flightless HQ between April and September 2016
• Mixed by Jarvis Taveniere
• Mastered by Joe Carra
• Artwork and layout Jason Galea

• Michael Cavanagh: Drum Kit (1-8) / Bongos (3-5, 8, 9) / Percussion (9)
• Cook Craig: Microtonal Guitar (1, 3, 7) / Microtonal Bass Guitar (4, 6)
• Ambrose Kenny-Smith: Microtonal Harmonica (1, 4, 7-9) / Vocals (5)
• Stu Mackenzie: Microtonal Guitar (1-8) / Microtonal Bass Guitar (2, 8) / Piano (1, 5, 9) /
Synthesiser (2, 3, 8, 9) / Zurna (1, 3, 5-7, 9) / Vocals (1-4, 7, 8) / Percussion (1, 2, 3, 9)
• Eric Moore: Drum Kit (1, 3) / Bongos (9)
• Lucas Skinner: Microtonal Bass Guitar (1-3, 7)
• Joey Walker: Microtonal Guitar (1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9) / Microtonal Bass Guitar (5) / Vocals (6)

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