Michael Cavanagh has spent fifteen years behind the kit in King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, a band not known for sitting still. Sojourn is his second solo album and it goes somewhere else entirely: ten wordless instrumentals built on spiritual jazz, prog and kosmische, with flute and saxophone carrying as much of the load as the drums do.
He made it with Jim Rindfleish, drummer with Melbourne fusion outfit Mildlife, who co-wrote every track, co-produced, engineered and mixed the record and plays drums, percussion and synth on it. With two drummers credited across the album, rhythm sits at the centre of everything rather than underneath it. Around them the label assembled a group drawn from Melbourne's players: Adam Halliwell on flute and guitar, Archibald Pommelhorse on saxophones and clarinet, Selene Messinis on piano and keys, Joe Walker on bass, Robyn Poppins on congas and bongos, and Freedom Fly on harp.
The titles do the world-building on their own — "Victoria Amazonica", "Emerald Nile", "Silk Road", "Boitatá", "Paititi", "Candiru" — Amazon flora and fauna, Brazilian fire myth, a lost Incan city, an old trade route. Nothing is explained. The record moves between rhythmic drive and long open passages and lets you place yourself in it.
Mastered by Joseph Carra. Layout and typography by Jason Galea, King Gizzard's longtime visual collaborator, with photography by Sarah Findlay. Pressed on recyclable injection-moulded PET rather than PVC, with screen-printed labels directly on the disc instead of paper, a printed inner sleeve, and a thick brown paper outer sleeve in place of shrinkwrap.