In layman’s terms, the Boltzmann Brain Theory imagines a universe where the only thing that matters is what we perceive. Are we beings flitting about in a universe of someone else’s design or are we simply “brains” floating briefly thru the void, imposing OUR universe on that emptiness and anyone who happens to cross our path?

That central idea was the spark that drove this piece for most of its development, but as it came in to sharper focus the question of “what?” or “why?” we exist and perceive became secondary to the act of perceiving itself.

We spend so much of our lives searching for answers — Why do I exist? Why would “God” allow so much suffering in a world of his own creation? Is Bigfoot real? — and rarely have the thought to simply let a moment be, let it go, and look forward to the next. And that’s where this piece landed.

For their 15th album (and 2nd this year), Australia’s King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard take yet another musical turn, this time into THRASH METAL. Infest The Rat’s Nest has everything: HUGE CRUSHING RIFFS! THUNDERING DRUMS! SCI-FI ECO-DIMENSIONAL HORROR! It even has SATAN!

But it’s that second-to-last point that’s so important. Somehow, impossibly, King Gizzard has made a metal album that not only sounds timeless but speaks to the horrors we’re all going to face as man-made climate change runs its course. Metal enthusiast Casey Rae (William Burroughs and The Cult Of Rock ‘N’ Roll, Dead To Me) joins us as we follow King Gizzard down the highway towards oblivion on an all-new episode of Discologist!

Chris Rosenau (Collections of Colonies Of Bees, Volcano Choir) and Nick Sanborn (Sylvan Esso, Made Of Oak) have traveled in the same creative circles for years now, but it was an off-the-cuff improv set at the inaugural Eaux Claires fest that has led to one of the most powerful releases of 2019, Bluebird. The open window and doors of the small North Carolina studio that Bluebird was recorded in gives the EP a sense of place in the world, but it is the magic weaved between Rosenau’s guitar and Sanborn’s electronic wizardry that pulls the listener wholly out of time and space into a moment of creation that is unlike anything you’re likely to experience this year.