King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Trapdoor
2015 · Directed by Jason Galea
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Best comments
1.“I'm sorry, what kind of door was it again?”
More comments
- 2.“When you and your bandmates all drop acid, then faff about in an old castle until you start scaring yourselves.”
- 3.“I can't believe they blew their $200 budget for this video on the witch's spell to turn Joey into a table.”
The story
Paper Mâché Dream Balloon was King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's second album of 2015, and the Melbourne band made it by unplugging. Almost everything on it is acoustic – flute, clarinet, violin, sitar, double bass – recorded in homes, sheds, garages, hotels and even tunnels. Trapdoor was the second single, out in September 2015 ahead of the album's November release. Stereogum called it urgent yet understated spy music. Fair: flute riffs, a pile of shakers and a groove that keeps looking over its shoulder.
The video was made the King Gizzard way, on the road with whatever was lying around. Jason Galea, the artist behind nearly all of the band's covers, posters and videos, shot it during a European tour. In Hamburg they played a venue that used to be a World War II bunker, and its props were too good to pass up. A few days later they filmed the outdoor scenes at Nottingham Castle with props from the gift shop.
The result: ghostly figures that may or may not be nuns, nodding and dancing around candelabras and under heavily dressed banquet tables. Critics reached for Monty Python. Galea says he's barely watched Python and blames an '80s BBC mindset soaked up from the British TV he grew up on in Australia. Either way, it's a haunted dinner party with a flute section.
