KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD Flying Microtonal Banana (Remote Control) Consider these assumptions with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (or is that King Wizard & The Gizzard Lizard?) and check your own prejudices as you do so. Take in the multiple members, on guitars, keyboards, percussion, flute, probably Theremin and mellotron, very likely flying wind machine, and did I mention flute?, and it screams out everyone-gets-a-solo free form. Clock the extravagant hair and tim

An album forged from grief by an internationally renowned songwriter, a record made for $1000 by self-described “scummy little punks”, and a sonically complex hip-hop album more than 15 years in the making will compete for this year’s prestigious Australian Music Prize. The Shortlist for the 12th AMP, whose prize of $30,000 makes it the country’s richest cash reward for an album, features nine acts almost as diverse as the Australian music industry. The best known of the cont

It is a pretty good year when Nick Cave’s intense, deeply emotional – though never easily categorised as “sad” – and wholly satisfying Skeleton Tree has to settle for #11 in the top 20 albums of the year. It’s keeping good company though, with the gentle but persistent piano work of Sophie Hutchings and the anything but gentle reportage of P J Harvey affecting works in their own way, and Rokia Traore, balancing pointed commentary and elegance, a quiet achiever. Weirdly, King

The best songs of the year? Quite possibly. The songs I played the most, sang the most, enjoyed the most this year? Definitely. Many of them come from collections which will appear on the list of the best/favourite albums of the year. Not surprisingly. All of them exist independently though. Cracking power plays, strong final statements, quite beautiful and sad moments, slinky sensuous grooves and not one sign of Fergie, Meghan Trainor or Shannon Bloody Noll. Instead there’s