Pigeonhole this … (from left) Aaron Hemphill, Angus Andrew and Julian Gross continue to confound and captivate with their fluid approach to genre dynamics.
Bands are often on the move. Travelling from one gig to the next and living out of the back of the bus is all part of the rock'n'roll lifestyle. However, for one group in particular, ''in motion'' takes on an entirely new meaning.
Since forming in 2000, Liars have continued to surprise their audience with their ever-changing music, and their wild and action-packed performances make them an unmissable festival act.
The trio - Angus Andrew, Aaron Hemphill and Julian Gross - have made a name for themselves as being a band who are difficult to define.
Even saying exactly where the band is from proves difficult. In recording their six studio albums, the transient trio have regularly shifted between LA, New Jersey and Berlin, and have no plans on changing this fluidity.
''Who knows where in the world we will end up next?'' Andrew says.
Trying to describe what genre of music the band falls under proves even more futile. Their debut album, They Threw Us All In a Trench and Stuck a Monument On Top, had many within the music industry describe them as post-punk, while their hugely successful fifth album, Sisterworld, had them lumped into the experimental rock category.
But this categorisation is something that Liars have always wanted to avoid.
''I understand that it is important for people to be able to make markers and be able to point people in the direction of where this music is coming from,'' Andrew says.
''But for a listener, this doesn't really concern me. I have never divided my catalogue of music into genres and this has never been something that I wanted to apply to my own music.''
Their most recent album, WIXIW (pronounced ''Wish You''), which was released in June, has continued this trend of moving between genres.
Dissimilar to most of their previous work, WIXIW enters the electronic music sphere and sees the band pursuing radically different ideas and creative processes.
''In making WIXIW, we wanted to experiment more with sound and were more interested about the mood rather than the idea of a song, which is just about verse, chorus, verse, chorus,'' Andrew says.
''Most of the time when we make a record, we come up with an overarching idea to start the process itself.
''For this album, we left that space blank and said that we would let the process be that concept.''
Andrew admits that these new processes and techniques proved difficult. ''It was frightening and daunting to step into the electronic world,'' he says.
''The computer was a very new thing for us, and there were certain types of software which we had no idea about. We would go into the studio to start writing a song and find ourselves sitting there reading manuals.''
Perhaps the band should have provided a phonetic explanation on the album cover for us all to understand the title, although its ambiguity was one of the reasons the band chose it.
''It can mean either I wish you the best or I wish you were dead, and these contradictory inner feelings go throughout the record,'' Andrew says.
''It's also a palindrome, which interested us as far as the idea ending up where you began. It's a word with a lot of mystique and superstition around it.''
Liars will bring this mystery to Parramatta's Harvest Festival on November 17. Growing up in Melbourne and moving to Sydney when he was 11 years old, Andrew has a strong connection to Australia and admits he is more excited than usual to be playing here again. ''We have toured Australia twice before, but it has been far too long since the last time we were there [in 2006],'' he says.
Even though Andrew admits that WIXIW is their most challenging record to translate into a live scenario given its electronic focus, he is adamant that the physicality of past albums will still be injected into their performance at Harvest.
''You can expect chaos and a lot of mess from our show,'' he says.
''We take a bit of a situationist approach and encourage mistakes and hope that things fall apart. That's when things tend to get interesting. If we walk out unscathed, then it's been a failure.''
You can be certain that their performance at Harvest will be much more exciting than them simply pressing buttons on a computer.
Reap the rewards: Harvest's other musical eccentrics
BECK
There are several incarnations of Beck Hansen, from reflective troubadour to superfly funkateer via folky rabble-rouser and hip-hop homeboy. They're all well worth a look live, so pity any act whose set clashes with his. 6.45pm, the Great Lawn.
SANTIGOLD
Santi White piqued the interest of everyone who heard her sublime single L.E.S. Artistes in 2008. She's still reliably unusual in her indie-style approach to dub, electronica and whatever else she feels like throwing into the mix. 9pm, the Windmill Stage.
SIGUR ROS
Iceland's finest (sorry, Bjork) recently proved they're still making luscious, otherworldly post-rock on sixth studio album Valtari. They may seem an odd choice for main-stage headliner, but then so were Portishead last year and they certainly didn't disappoint. 8.30pm, the Great Lawn.
MIKE PATTON'S MONDO CANE
The creatively eclectic Faith No More frontman must have had quite the experience at the Sydney Festival to be here for the second time this year indulging his inner Italian crooner. Patton's Mondo Cane project is as rich as it is fun. 3.45pm, the Great Lawn.
DEXYS
If ever a band deserved more than the title of "one-hit wonder", it's the artists formerly known as Dexys Midnight Runners. Come On Eileen may be the classic everyone knows, but their back catalogue oozes idiosyncratic pop-soul genius. 1.30pm, the Windmill Stage.
George Palathingal
HARVEST FESTIVAL
November 17, 11am-10pm, Parramatta Park, corner Pitt and Macquarie streets, Parramatta. Liars play the Big Red Tractor Stage at 3pm.
TICKETS harvestfestival.com.au/tickets, 13 28 49, $163.20.
TRAVEL Trains and buses to Parramatta Station. From there, it is a 15-minute walk.
LIVE A trio who bring a chaotic and unexpected live show, featuring experimental rock, punk and electronic music, and everything in between.
BEST TRACK Brats, off the album WIXIW.
No comments:
Post a Comment