“Red Smoke” is one of a number of environmentally conscious songs on Omnium Gatherum, focusing on bushfires due to the increasingly hot environment and managerial errors leading to a spiraling situation. Led by Ambrose Kenny-Smith in 7/4 time, the song signals the oncoming end of the album with one final slow tune.

The song was played by only three band members: Ambrose (vocals/guitar/Wurlitzer/vibraphone/percussion), Cavs (drums) and Stu (Wurlitzer/bass/vocals/synthesizer). It was recorded, mixed and produced by Stu, and co-recorded by Ambrose. In February of 2022 the band’s Twitter page posted various combinations of emojis with the goal of figuring out the song title hidden within them. The song was represented by a raccoon, an eagle, a deer, a night sky and a cigarette with smoke coming out of it. It was guessed by two people though @citbwtrac got it first. The color is spelled out with the first letter of each animal’s name while the smoke is self-evident. It was released as part of Omnium Gatherum on April 22nd, 2022.

The song gave the band a hard time, so much so that Lucas named it the hardest song from Omnium Gatherum to play during King Gizzard’s 2022 Reddit AMA. “Red Smoke” was played live once on 2022-10-19 at L’Olympia Montreal. It was performed close to its album counterpart, with a guitar solo from Stu in place of the album’s synth feature.