Butterfly 3000

Butterfly 3000 is the 18th Studio album released by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, the second of 3 LPs released in 2021. The albums direction is characterized by the heavy use of synths, synth loops, and modular synths. Additionally, the focus on major keys and more cheerful lyrics is used as a contrast to previous works of the group.

## Tracklist

1. Yours
2. Shanghai
3. Dreams
4. Blue Morpho
5. Interior People
6. Catching Smoke
7. 2.02 Killer year
8. Black Hot Soup
9. Ya Love
10. Butterfly 3000

## Artwork/Artistic Direction

The cover features a "Magic eye" image created by the groups long running artistic director Jason Galea (Magic eye images are able to create a 3d illusion using a perticular method of refocusing ones vision). On physical versions of the release, the inger gatefold and back cover features brightly recolored photos of the group at the Melbourne Zoo Butterfly garden, accomapnied by a bright and colorful track listing and abbreviated "K.G.L.W". This photoshoot was featured in the online behind the scenes release "gizz goes to the zoo". On alternate language versions of the album the tracklist, lyrics sheet, and albums title all are traslated into their respective language, but the artwork and audio otherwise remain the same (see vinyl variants below)

One of the overarching themes of the albums artistic direction was the release of a music video for every song off the album over the course of 3 months following it's realease. This included videos by artists not seen before in relation to the band (Jamie Wolfe, Ivan DIxon, etc.), in addition to the typical collabortaoins (PHC films, Jason Galea). Each video was live streamed online on release day, enabling the band to do an informal Q&A with fans before and during the event, which enabled for fans to find out very specific information about current and upcoming releases.

## Reception

The band stated pre-release that this would be a contoversial release among fans, since it was extremely opposite to some other albums they have put out and become known for. That being said, the album was generally well received, with the expected decrease in listeners due to the large shift in direction. however, fans of thier previous calm and digitally based releases found lots of hope in this project, creating a unique shift in the fanbases outlook on the groups future projects

Reviews
 The Needle Drop
 NME
 Pitchfork
 Metacritic
 DIYmag

The album peaked at no.2 on ARIA and 114 on Ultratop Walonia

## Vinyl Variants

One of the other characterizing aspects of the release was the extreme approach to the vinyl variants. There were 10 alternate language variants of the album released, (ततल 3000, VLINDER 3000, PAPILLON 3000, SCHMETTERLING 3000, バタフライ 3000, 蝴蝶 3000, БАБОЧКА 3000, MARIPOSA 3000, บตั เตอรฟ์ ลาย 3000, KELEBEK 3000), all of which being limited to 1000-2000 copies. The standard english variant was not as limited in availibility. All 11 versions were considered "lucky dip" wax, meaning that one would buy the album not knowing the color you would get. There were 4 color options; Caterpillar red, chrysialis yellow, butterfly blue, or the "transition colors", the last of which being an extremely rare mixture of the other colors. Transition records only appeared in the japanese and russian variants of the album, but this was not clear until after they had been distributed to fans. This meant that the amount of record variants that could possibly exist was at minimum 35, but it could increase in the future, or if there are discovered to be transition colors in other languages.

## Writing and Recording Credits

### *Writing*

Stu Mackenzie is creditied with writing credit on all 10 tracks, and has primary wiritng credit on all tracks except tracks 5 and 9. Ambrose Kenny-Smith is credited on tracks 2 and 7, Joey Walker is credited on tracks 5 and 6, and Cook Craig is credited on track 9.

### *Recording*

* Stu Mackenzie – vocals (tracks 1–4, 6–10), synthesiser (tracks 1–10), mellotron (tracks 1–4, 7), acoustic guitar (tracks 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9), bass guitar (tracks 1–6, 8, 9), drums (tracks 1, 4, 6, 9, 10), piano (tracks 2, 6), wurlitzer (track 4), percussion (tracks 6–8)
* Michael Cavanagh – drums (tracks 1–10)
* Cook Craig – synthesiser (tracks 2, 6, 8–10), electric guitar (tracks 6, 8), percussion (track 8), mellotron (track 9), bass guitar (tracks 9, 10)
* Ambrose Kenny-Smith – vocals (tracks 1, 2, 6–9), percussion (tracks 1–4, 6–10), harmonica (track 1), saxophone (track 4)
* Joey Walker – vocals (tracks 5, 6), acoustic guitar (tracks 5, 6), electric guitar (tracks 5, 6), synthesiser (tracks 5, 6), keyboards (track 5)

### *Production*

* Stu Mackenzie – production, mixing (tracks 1-4, 6-10)

* Joey Walker – mixing (tracks 5, 6)
* Joseph Carra – mastering
* Jason Galea – artwork