Australian Psych Rock
Perth bedrooms and Melbourne bunkers: the psych revival that turned Australia into the genre's engine room.
What you're really asking
Australia's psych wave is two cities with two metabolisms: Perth's headphone perfectionism — Kevin Parker recording every note himself — and Melbourne's firehose, where King Gizzard release albums faster than most bands write setlists.
Where it sits
Kevin Parker's Tame Impala came out of Perth's isolation; Innerspeaker in 2010 and Lonerism in 2012 made bedroom psych arena-sized, pulling Pond along in the same orbit. In Melbourne, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard built the Flightless label and an ecosystem of venues like The Tote — Nonagon Infinity in 2016 ran the garage-psych idea at thrash speed, and the Gizzverse kept expanding into jazz, synths and metal.
The scene
Who: Parker's Perth circle and the Flightless family. What: psychedelia as craft — either sculpted to the last reverb tail or thrown like a party.
How it works: the canon moves fast; colored-vinyl pressings and bootleg-friendly live tapes make the collecting its own sport.
The leading records
Tame Impala
Lonerism
2012
Bedroom psych at symphonic scale — the record that globalized the scene.
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard
Nonagon Infinity
2016
An album built as one infinite loop; the live show pressed to wax.
Pond
Beard, Wives, Denim
2012
Perth's loose end — the jam band to Tame Impala's architect.
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets
And Now For The Whatchamacallit
2019
The next generation: riffs first, subtlety optional.
King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard
Flying Microtonal Banana
2017
The microtonal detour that proved the catalog has no walls.
Oddballs
Keep digging
- Where to start in the King Gizzard catalog?
- What did Kevin Parker produce for others?
- Which Flightless releases are actually scarce?