The anticipation of listening to a new LP from art-rock band Liars is like opening an awesome gift. There’s the pleasure and delight of the unknown, as the wrapping is peeled away to reveal something unexpected and unique.
Ahead of an Australian tour next month, we had a chat with Liars otherworldly lead vocalist/guitarist/experimentalist Angus Andrew (an Aussie expat currently based in LA) about the trio’s eclectic discography and uncategorisable sound.
From their 2001 punk debut They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top, right up to the primal, pop electronica of Mess released in March this year – the boys are known for pushing musical boundaries and playing fun and energetic live shows.
From Favourite to least Angus discusses the arc of the group’s 7 albums over the last 13 years, which are all tied together by the common thread of “being an outsider in the modern world” and how, perhaps, the band may have even influenced Beyoncé!
Mess
Mute Records, 2014.
“This was really fun and vibrant to make and it didn’t take that long in comparison to some of our other records. That was the goal of the album: to work really fast and not to second-guess things. It was very instinctive and from the gut. The idea of a mess is really subjective, so it’s interesting to play with the idea of what people see as messy and chaotic.
It was a bit easier to make than the previous record, which was also electronic. With the older record we had to learn how to make electronic sounds, even to the point of having user manuals open while we were recording. That’s fun in an explorative way, but it’s also really hard. Mess was the opposite – we’d figured out how to use things, so it was more off-the-cuff.”
They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top
Gern Blandsten, 2001.
“It’s funny because I feel like this is one of the most similar records to our latest one. This was our first album and I didn’t expect anyone to even listen to it; it was very immediate and we recorded it in 2 days. I wasn’t concerned with opinions and that’s what’s great about it. Like Mess, it wasn’t too cerebral and didn’t come from over-thinking.”
They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Mute Records, 2004.
“This is one of my favourite ones. It was about exploration and just seemed to all come together in this magical way. I realised everyone was going to listen to this album because our debut was surprisingly successful. That’s a weird position to be in. It made me think about what I was putting out there and actually considering what I was trying to say.
It’s one of the most experimental LPs we’ve made – we just went for it. It’s a conceptual record about witches and witch-hunts, and was made right when America was invading Iraq, just after 9/11, a very heavy political time.
People were upset that we didn’t make a similar record to the first one. But it set a precedent that each time we brought out something new it was going to be a re-evaluation of what it means to make a record. Critics hated it and the reception was pretty negative…but that’s why I like it so much. To me this record was actually successful because it created this divisive dialogue, and opinions about it have changed a lot over time.”
WIXIW
Mute Records, 2012.
“I wanted as long as possible to make WIXIW [pronounced ‘Wish You’). It took over 2 years. But that can be a real problem because you get bogged down in things and get too pedantic. It was a pretty dark time.
Aaron and I stayed in a cabin in the woods outside of Los Angeles for the writing and recording, and it was the first time we’d made a completely insular album. There’s an underlying spookiness about it. The writing was really personal, unlike anything we’d done before – it was about the feeling of uncertainty. Previously, we’d used concepts, themes, and ideas to deflect the personal approach. For this album we just shut out our environment and immersed ourselves in our own lives completely.”
Sisterworld
Mute Records, 2010.
“We made this when we got back to Los Angeles, after living in Berlin for 4 years. So I wanted to make a record about how it feels to live in LA; I got into it deep and did a lot of research. I moved to a place where I was really in the thick of it and used the environment to sculpt the record. LA gets a bad rap; people are quick to judge what it’s like here. The point to make was that it’s not a one-dimensional place and not so easily defined– there’s more to it than palm trees and plastic surgery. It has a dark side.
On the deluxe version, we had a lot of people remix every song, not just the singles, artists like Thom Yorke from Radiohead, Devendra Banhart, and the Melvins, which was really cool.”
Drum’s Not Dead
Mute Records, 2006.
“We relocated to Berlin, and this was our first album made there. We dropped everything we’d learnt up until that point, and focused on drums and percussion. It was such a creatively productive time because I didn’t know that many people in Berlin, so I felt like my whole life was really dedicated to this work. I became very focused and submersed. We made 3 videos for every song: 36 in total. That’s more than Beyoncé did for her latest album!”
Liars
Mute Records, August 2007.
“This self-titled release was our second one made in Berlin. The idea for this was similar to Mess. We needed to make it as fast as possible and be impulsive. It was the first time…believe it or not – 4 records in – and I’d only just started to feel like a musician.
So we looked at playing music more traditionally. I’d figured out how to do basic stuff, like using a blues chord progression, which I’d never bothered to be interested in before. I acknowledged the fact that I could fit in with some classic stuff like Led Zeppelin or Guns ‘N Roses, and I played with the idea of making songs more obvious.
I like pedals and effects and noise, but at some point it becomes more experimental to use regular notes and chords, than to just throw it all out on the ground. I’d spent so much time being an experimental artist that playing more theory-based music actually became more experimental to me.”
Liars 2014 Australian Tour
Thursday 5 June
The Corner Hotel, Melbourne
Tickets from Corner Hotel
Friday 6 June
Modulations, Carriageworks, Sydney
Tickets from Vivid Sydney
