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Just when you think you have King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard sussed they throw a curveball. Australia’s finest and most productive rock band have done this before, of course: while the world was still reeling from their 2014 breakthrough psych-punk masterpiece I'm In Your Mind Fuzz (2014) they casually released 2015’s expectation-confounding Paper Mâché Dream Balloon (2015), a pastoral, sun-drenched acid-folk album.

And now in the wake of two albums released in 2017 already, including most recently the dystopian end-times concept album Murder Of The Universe, which tackled in no uncertain terms the rise of robots and the downfall of mankind (and as such was the best since JeffWayne’s War Of The Worlds), comes an entirely altered beast.

Sketches Of Brunswick East is a collaboration between King Gizzard and Mild High Club, the Los Angeles based tripster troupe led by Alex Brettin, who put out one of 2016’s deepest listens, Skiptracing. The two bands formed a strong friendship touring together throughout the USA, Europe, and Australia.

“I think we hit it off because our approaches are very different...yet similar,” laughs Stu. “Alex has studied music, whereas my approach is to fling shit at the wall and see what sticks. I can’t read sheet music at all. But we’re like the two ends of a horseshoe coming to meet in the middle. We always talked about working together and after Gizzfest last year I said to Alex ‘Why not stick around and make a record?’ So he stayed at my house for three weeks and most days were spent in the studio making music with the rest of the guys. Jazz seeped into it, and we were listening to compilations of Ethiopian music form the 1960s and 70s a lot. It was in no way thought-out though. If Murder Of The Universe was our most conceptual and arranged album - then Sketches... is the exact opposite.”

Sketches Of Brunswick East is a soothing balm of a record; an aural salve to be tenderly applied to the world’s damaged collective psyche. It is a chance to show their sunny, playful side. Where previous albums have slipped down sonic worm-holes to explore distant galaxies, this one is an examination of (and homage to) the Melbourne suburb in which King Gizzard write and record in their own studio, and from where they run their planet-spanning psychedelic operation.