Given Melbourne’s King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have released 25 studio albums, sixteen live albums, three compilations and one remix record since forming in 2010, the job of picking just one LP as an introduction to their hyper-productive universe is a difficult one. With honourable mentions to 2014’s I’m Your Mind Fuzz, Infest The Rat’s Nest from 2019 and 2017’s Microtonal Banana (one of five LPs they released that year), 2016’s Nonagon Infinity is as good a place as any to start if you want to explore the twelve legged wig-out machine’s oeuvre.

Conceived so that not only do all nine songs seamlessly blend into one another, but also that the pounding goblin rock of closer “Road Train” can jump straight back into opening track “Robot Stop”’s flailing runaway psych without skipping a beat, meaning that in theory you can listen to it on a loop ad infinitum. That might be a bit intense even for the most devout Gizzard fan, but Nonagon Infinity’s 41 minutes are more than enough testament to what an astonishing unit they are, able to burrow down, skin change and levitate with a potency and agility that at times – as when the pinballing “People-Vultures” ricochets into the spaced out “Mr. Beat” – recalls Can at their peak.

– Chris Catchpole