Days before kicking off a massive North American tour in support of their 27th album, Phantom Island, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have pulled their catalog from Spotify. “Hello friends,” the group wrote on Instagram yesterday (July 25). “A PSA to those unaware: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests millions in Al military drone technology. We just removed our music from the platform. Can we put pressure on these Dr. Evil tech bros to do better? Join us on another platform.”
Artists such as Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu have recently made similar moves in response to news that Helsing, which is also run by Ek, is developing software for military weapons and equipment. Gizzard announced the news while simultaneously releasing the rarities collection Demos Vol. 7 + 8 to all DSPs besides Spotify.
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“New demos collection out everywhere except Spotify (fuck Spotify),” Gizzard wrote. “You can bootleg it if you wanna.” At the moment, the only release from the band still on the platform, where they have more than 1.5 million monthly listeners, is a 2022 EP with Tropical Fuck Storm titled Satanic Slumber Party.
King Gizzard begin a combination orchestra/rock tour Monday in Philadelphia that will also encompass their first destination festival, Field of Vision, on Aug. 15-17 in Buena Vista, Co.
“There will be some different arrangements, because the things that work on record and the things that work on a live stage are not always the same,” group member Stu Mackenzie told SPIN earlier this summer. “We’re also dipping into handful of tracks in the back catalog. We are playing Phantom Island in full — I will say that. That’s a really exciting prospect and not something that we’ve done much really at all. It feels like that’s going to feel very celebratory for us. Apart from that, it’s still very much evolving. We’ve got one rehearsal with the symphony from Philadelphia the day before the first show and that’s it for us. I don’t know if that’s crazy or sadistic, but it’s definitely something. We just have to trust the process.”
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