Songs > The Dripping Tap > History


“The Dripping Tap” is one of those songs that embodies what King Gizzard is all about. From its debut, it joined the ranks of songs like “Robot Stop” and “Crumbling Castle”, tracks that define why the band is different from most. When played live, the song brings out an unparalleled energy in the fans, and even the band members have stated that this song is a blast to play. There is something about it that is endearing and completely captivating. Perhaps it’s the pure dopamine rush of its jams. Could it be the environmentally conscious lyrics that are both direct and catchy? Maybe it’s the changes throughout that keep us hooked. It’s worth arguing that all of the above is the correct answer. “The Dripping Tap” can’t be boiled down to a certain element — each second seems to hit just right. It’s magic. While there is one special aspect to its recording session, “The Dripping Tap” didn’t just come out of nowhere. In fact it had a pretty long history ever before it made it onto Omnium Gatherum. Fans knew it all the way back in 2019, at least in its primordial state. To understand where it comes from we need to follow the water back towards the fishies.

The first traces of “The Dripping Tap” showed up in the 2018 sessions for Fishing For Fishies. The band had traveled to the rural Victorian home studio owned by Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin of the Australian Art Punk/Noise Rock band Tropical Fuck Storm, where several days of recording and jamming were hosted. Originally, the song had simply been a jam affectionately referred to as the “Hat Jam” (sometimes stylized as “Hatjam”), as the band were wearing a variety of hats while playing. The session was loud, energetic and formless — lasting over twenty minutes and containing vital riffs that would come back around. The wild pull offs from Joey and Stu, as well as the “left the tap on” motifs can be heard on the released tapes found on Demos Vol. 3, Vol. 4 and Vol. 5. According to a press release featuring Fiona, the jam was a spur of the moment thing after a few too many drinks, but one that would prove to be fruitful. “Hat Jam” would be filmed, cut down, and added to the end of their short documentary How to gut a Fishie by Jason Galea. Upon the release of the video, fans were already calling for the jam to be released in some form. This is evident by comments at the time, and the fact that the most viewed part of the video is around the 11:43 mark, right when the jam begins. Even in its unfinished, unmixed and highly distorted form, the song had captured an audience. Both bands involved also seemed to love the piece and would continue to workshop what they had.
In a bonus feature for the concert film Chunky Shrapnel titled “Amby,” another seed is planted. Filmed during the band’s 2019 European tour, the video shows Ambrose and Stu messing around with a keyboard. When later asked about this video in a Reddit AMA on May 11th, 2022, Ambrose would state that this was the intro of “The Dripping Tap'' and that it had gone through a few iterations before settling on what was put to record. A short demo for the section (released on Demos Vol. 6) features a lo-fi electronic kit, a bouncy bassline and a nice keyboard part. The only thing missing here from a compositional viewpoint is the final note of the phrase. While the jam was shrouded in mystery, Stu said that it would “kinda” be released in the future during a 2020 Reddit AMA.
Later down the line in August of 2021, Gareth Liddiard of Tropical Fuck Storm stated that a collaboration between TFS and King Gizzard was underway and that it “got put on the backburn [sic] for a while.” Outside of this statement little was said about the collaboration. Lucas has said that after the Melbourne pandemic lockdowns ended and the band were able to rehearse and record in the same room together again, the first thing they did was revisit this song. “We were just recording as much as we could — Melbourne’s lockdown was long, brutal and strict so we didn’t get together a lot for a very long time,” he said. “‘The Dripping Tap’ was the first thing that we did when we got together, and it made sense to us because it was this jam that we had floating around that we had never finished. It felt like something that we didn’t need to conceptualize. We didn’t need to plan and rehearse; we could just pick up our instruments, hit record and go. We recorded for hours, capturing everything and keeping the best bits. That was what felt right at the time after being not social, not together and not interacting.” Stu would say in a SPIN article “It was like, shit. This song’s sweet and we need to finish it. That one was like that, but it was a newly recorded thing. It had a vibe. We didn’t know it was going to be that long.”

Recording sessions for the song appeared throughout the video The Making of Omnium Gatherum, and give some interesting insight to the song’s creation. For example, some of the fast guitar parts throughout the song were not recorded at that speed, with Stu opting to slow down the song while adjusting its pitch, playing the part, then speeding up the entire track again to complete the section (seen at 2:52). In the end Ambrose (vocals/organ/percussion/Wurlitzer/harmonica), Cavs (drums), Cook (guitar/vocals), Joey (guitar/vocals), Lucas (bass) and Stu (vocals/guitar/bass/organ/piano/percussion) would all contribute to the track. It was recorded, mixed and produced by Stu. The same month of Liddiard’s statement, Gizzard began to tease songs for a new album by tweeting out emojis that fans had to decode into song titles. “The Dripping Tap” was an emoji of a tap with two water droplets under it. On February 8th, 2022 the band tweeted another set of similar emojis.

Reflecting its recording process fraught with pandemic restrictions, “The Dripping Tap” wouldn’t see its debut until ‘The Return of the Curse of Timeland festival’ held in Naarm (Melbourne) on 2022-3-5, as redemption for the canceled New Year’s Eve Timeland festival and three months of uncertainty surrounding live shows since the incomplete 2021 Brisbane residency. At the end of the first set, Ambrose stated that the next song was “about a tap that won’t stop dripping.” The band then debuted “The Dripping Tap” to the audience — making it the third live debut of the night alongside “Magenta Mountain” and “The Garden Goblin.” Astute members of the weirdo swarm recognized it as the “Hat Jam”, with others noting how the song harkened back to older euphoric high-energy live jams like “Head On/Pill” and “Am I In Heaven?”
A few days later on March 8th, 2022, the song was officially released as the first single from their newly announced album Omnium Gatherum, with its runtime spanning eighteen minutes and seventeen seconds — at the time their longest studio song. In a press release for the album, Stu remarked on how the sessions felt important coming out of the COVID lockdowns and stated that Gizzard were going into their “jammy period.” As just another of King Gizzard’s experiments with format and production, the digital single version of “The Dripping Tap” was recorded from the already pressed vinyl by mastering engineer Joseph Carra with his ‘insanely high-end’ turntable setup. The band still had more surprises up their sleeve, however.
On the 13th, two things were announced. First, Tropical Fuck Storm had recorded and released their own project utilizing that jam session. Titled Satanic Slumber Party, it is a spooky three-song EP based around the original sessions with TFS doing overdubs onto the recordings. A video for the EP’s only single, “Satanic Slumber Party: Part 2 (Midnight In Sodom),” was released the same day. Second, both bands released a compilation simply titled Hat Jam. The release featured both “The Dripping Tap” and Satanic Slumber Party, both showing off what came of the jam. Hat Jam was a limited edition vinyl release with only a thousand copies pressed on “Lucky Rainbow” vinyl, instantly becoming a collector’s item.
The song was later released as downloadable content for the video game Paradiddle.

In the time following its live debut, “The Dripping Tap” has become a regular in the band’s lineup, usually serving as an opener or closer to their sets. The song’s highly improvisational structure opens the door for a lot of experimentation. The length of the jams fluctuates from show to show, ranging from nine to thirty minutes in total (see 2023-06-17). Like their other long jams, “The Dripping Tap” often contains teases of other songs, such as “Hot Water” (2023-03-09), “Cellophane” (2023-04-06) and “Hypertension” (2023-09-03).

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