02 NO BERGEN - LANDMARK - CANCELLED!!!
03-05 DATE TBA NO QUART FESTIVAL - CANCELLED!!!
04 FI HELSINKI - TAVASTIA
05 DK ROSKILDE - ROSKILDE FESTIVAL
06 IT ROMA / PALESTRINA - NEL NOME DEL ROCK FESTIVAL
09 IT MARINA DI RAVENNA - HANNA BY
10 IT ANCONA - LAZZARETTO SCONCERTI
11 IT BARI - VASTO FESTIVAL
12 BE LIEGE - LES ARDENTES FESTIVAL
13 NL NIJMEGEN - VALKHOF AFFAIRE FESTIVAL
17 PO GUIMARAES - CENTRO CULTURAL VILA FLOR
19 EI DUBLIN - ANALOG FESTIVAL
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BIOGRAPHY |
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Fear is a very powerful emotion. The last band to so expertly execute the cocktail of menace and artful, brilliant chaos that Liars achieve for their second album, They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, were fellow New Yorkers Sonic Youth, when they cut their epochal Bad Moon Rising album. It's a record from a band in transition, severing their ties with the scene they kinda inaugurated and have now, decidedly, outgrown. A band defining themselves only in terms of what they wish to achieve, the limits of their imagination. A band withdrawing to a basement deep in the wilds somewhere and letting their every little wrinkle of rampant creativity and twisted genius seep deep into the shadows of this most poignant and chilling ghost story. This story begins where the first chapter of Liars history ended, with the release of their debut album, They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top, a literate and deranged acceleration of post-punk groove, avant noise, bizarre pop sensibilities and an enduring love for the minimal funk of ESG. Operating from the kooky artsy enclave of hip that was Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Liars then numbering singer Angus Andrew (born in the Philippines, raised in Australia, resident in NYC for some time), guitarist Aaron Hemphill (a West Coast native), bassist Pat Nature and drummer Ron Albertson (both hailing from Lincoln, Nebraska) slayed locals with chaotic and brilliant live shows that sowed seeds for the subsequent punk-funk revival that's so wantonly hip nowadays. By the time that scene had transformed Williamsburg into a hipster tourist spot, Liars - as any true pioneers would - had vacated the premises. They were a very different band, in their experiences (including global tours with Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Sonic Youth), their infamy (following the gloriously received album, many unforgettable live sets, the release of Fins to Make Us More Fish-Like EP and a stunning split-EP with Williamsburg's founding fathers of Out-Rock, Oneida), and also their lineup; late in 2002, parting ways with Pat and Ron. "Aaron and I had always been the songwriters, often times writing the drum patterns and basslines" explains Angus now. "We no longer really wanted to have our work interpreted by someone else; we needed to keep it as close to us and simplified as possible." Early in 2003, Angus left Williamsburg with his girlfriend, Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and moved into a house deep in the forests of New Jersey. As Yeah Yeah Yeahs went off on tour late Spring/early Summer, Angus invited Aaron and an old mutual friend, Julian Gross, down to the house. Liars had negotiated with their label, Mute, that rather than record their second album in a conventional studio, with every spare minute costing them, that they invest in some modest studio gear and record the album in Angus's basement, with good friend Dave Sitek assisting. The band had already made a conscious decision, even before the tapes began to roll, to move on from the music of their first album, even though a whole clutch of live favorites from their first incarnation, including the pulverising "Catchy Like Brains On Gangs" remained unrecorded. "It was so shocking to me, how quickly we were put into this 'Post-Punk Brooklyn Art-Dance' pigeonhole, remembers Angus. "We realized that we needed to drop all that stuff and clear the slate." The trio set up all manner of what Angus calls 'weird shit' in the studio and began laying down the new music. New ideas were percolating busily through their minds, fresh influences like Silver Apples and This Heat, discoveries Angus and Aaron had made from tapes given them while touring the world. Angus had hitched a ride with Yeah Yeah Yeahs when they toured with Bjork earlier that year, and enjoyed perfect vantage points to see exactly how the Matmos guys cooked up the sounds that make up her live accompaniment explaining the new album's twitching synthesis of dark electronics and quaking analogue noise. And the duo are still die-hard fans of hip-hop. The moment when the album found its true direction was, however, a truly spooky one. "We laid down the basic tracks for the first track, and Aaron was, for no apparent reason, adamant it should be called "Broken Witch" remembers Angus. "I was messing around on the internet later, and typed "Broken Witch" into Google, only I mistyped it as "Brocken Witch." Next thing I knew, all these web pages about Walpurgisnacht and the legend of Brocken mountain started popping up, so I started reading through them. I walked into the room where the other guys were, kind of blown away that we'd stumbled upon it; it was just perfect". Fear is a very seductive emotion. Walpurgisnacht is celebrated in Germany on April 30th, and, according to German legend, is the night when the witches fly on their broomsticks to the Brocken mountain, Germany's highest, deep in the Hartz mountain range, a location rich in folklore. The date is a potent one, declared the Witches Sabbath by the inquisition at the height of the witch-hunt hysteria of the middle ages, and was originally the date of a heathen festival, the night deities Wodan and Freya conceived Spring. The legends surrounding the witches of Brocken have inspired many works of art and music, such as Mussorgsky's Night On Bald Mountain, and, also, Liars' They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. The title suggests, of course, the horror and injustice of the witch-hunts, just one of a series of crusades against womankind conducted through the ages, but the album is more even-handed fable than angered tract. Each song on the album is a further chapter in a tale fashioned by Angus after in-depth research into faerie tales and folklore, detailing the struggle between the witches and a village of scared Christians. "I was fascinated by how people buy in to the idea of magic and superstition, remembers Angus. "We told the story from both sides, the villagers who truly believed in these evil witches, and also the poor drowned girls accused of being them. Our house in New Jersey is deep in the forest, away from people and distractions," he continues. "There was very little in the way of outside influence on the album. Once we got stuck on the whole witch theme, we tried to freak ourselves out as much as possible, taking long walks at night through the forest, just trying to get into the right mindset. "This isn't us forever," he concludes, of the album. "It's not like the next record is going to be scary and weird. We've got a sense of humor and this is a project that we've done. We could easily make a Japanese pop record next time. I can't wait to hear what people think of the album, and what box they'll put us in this time, so we can break out of that one too." |
