Liars

The experimental outfit Liars, fronted by vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Angus Andrew, has avoided repeating itself across its discography. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s the group progressed from the art-minded dance-punk of their 2001 debut They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top into a shape-shifting enterprise that shed genre boundaries with each successive release. Relocating repeatedly while shifting sonic palettes, the band alternated between fragility and intensity from record to record, sometimes within individual tracks. Their Berlin period encompassed the inward-focused rhythmic explorations of 2006’s Drum’s Not Dead and the postmodern biker rock of 2007’s Liars, whereas their Los Angeles years produced 2010’s Sisterworld, which portrayed the city’s outsiders through both suffocating atmospheres and austere arrangements, and 2012’s WIXIW, which examined relational uncertainty via fragile electronics and dream pop. Regardless of stylistic evolution, Liars maintained an aura of enigma and quest that intensified on 2017’s TFCF—the first album featuring Andrew as sole member—and on the broader collaborative effort 2021’s The Apple Drop.

Liars originated in late-’90s Los Angeles when Australian photography student Angus Andrew, then enrolled at Cal Arts, encountered songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Aaron Hemphill, a former microbiology student employed at a neighborhood record shop. The two soon began crafting 4-track recordings before relocating to New York City. There they answered a musicians-wanted notice posted by bassist Pat Noecker, previously of Urethra Franklin and Neuromancer, and drummer Ron Albertson, an ex-member of Mercy Rule. By November 2000 the quartet had adopted the name Liars. With Beastie Boys and Lee “Scratch” Perry producer/engineer Steve Revitte, they tracked their debut album They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top over two days. Released in October 2001 on Gern Blandsten, the record’s vigorous dance-punk established the band within New York’s early-2000s indie-rock community.

The group then joined Mute Records, which issued the EP Fins to Make Us More Fish-Like in July 2002 and re-released They Threw Us All in a Trench that September. Following the demos collection We No Longer Knew Who We Were, Noecker and Albertson departed. Andrew and Hemphill enlisted Andrew’s former Cal Arts classmate Julian Gross on drums. The resulting trio introduced itself with Atheists, Reconsider, a split EP alongside Oneida issued in December 2002 on Arena Rock Recording Co. Its experimental collages foreshadowed the more demanding path taken on the second album and first Mute full-length, 2004’s They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. Cut in a New Jersey forest cabin with friend and co-producer Dave Sitek, the set drew from experimental electronic music and German witchcraft legends. Liars next settled in Berlin and commenced work on their third album inside a former East German broadcast facility. Percussion explorations supplied the core of 2006’s Drum’s Not Dead, a concept album centered on creativity and uncertainty and paired with short films by the band and additional directors. The following year’s self-titled release adopted a leaner method, tighter songcraft, and tougher textures.

After moving to Los Angeles, the band drew from the metropolis’s isolated figures for 2010’s Sisterworld, which blended ambitious sonic environments with fierce eruptions and included contributions from Jon Brion collaborator Tom Biller. That same year Liars participated in Beck’s Record Club series and interpreted INXS’s 1987 album Kick. For the subsequent record they composed material in a cabin north of Los Angeles and collaborated with Mute founder Daniel Miller inside their own studio. The outcome, 2012’s WIXIW (pronounced “wish you”), offered reflective, relationship-centered material wrapped in gentle electronics that evoked prior tourmates Radiohead. Another reversal arrived with the confrontational, industrial-leaning Mess, released in March 2014. After that album Gross exited owing to health concerns that complicated touring, while Hemphill left amicably at the start of 2017. Remaining member Andrew settled in a remote region of his native Australia, where he assembled songs incorporating field recordings, acoustic guitar, and lyrics shaped by Hemphill’s departure and his father’s passing. These pieces became TFCF (short for “Theme from Crying Fountain”), issued in August 2017. After the remix EP VFCF (Variations from Crying Fountain) appeared in early 2018, July brought Liars’ score for director Jeremy Phillips’s coming-of-age film 1/1, recorded by Andrew and Hemphill in 2014 shortly after completing Mess. That September the outtakes set Titles with the Word Fountain followed. Early in 2020 Andrew reworked the track “Top Ticket” from the post-punk supergroup P.E.’s debut album Person and supplied vocals for Xiu Xiu’s 2021 album Oh No. Liars returned that August with their tenth album, The Apple Drop. Issued twenty years after the project’s first release, the record featured contributions from avant-garde jazz drummer Laurence Pike, multi-instrumentalist Cameron Deyell, and lyricist Mary Pearson Andrew, along with a more expansive scope than the TFCF period.