For a band that have been around for close to fifteen years, it’s somewhat surprising that Liars’ following has largely stuck to the less commercial side of culty. Perhaps it’s thanks to the band’s determination to avoid genre-boxing themselves, across six albums stepping their way from what has been described as everything from punk-rock to post no wave.

Mess, Liars’ seventh studio album, is the biggest surprise yet. From beat one, ears are confronted with apocalyptic slabs of electronic sound and a robotic voice seemingly conjured by front man Angus Andrew out of thin air.

Most shocking though is the effortless way Mess impels you to dance. It’s a challenge Liars have never seemed to bother to rise to until now. As Andrew explains, the band’s newfound understanding of their own instruments and a fresh readiness to completely let go has enabled such change. Alongside a hefty serve of don’t-give-a-fuck.

Tempe Nakiska: I’ve heard the recording process was completely different to 2012’s WIXIW, how did it evolve from there?
Angus Andrew: With WIXIW it was a super long process. We really overworked things and it was the first time we had used electronic instruments to make a record so it was nerve-wracking. It was cool but not necessarily that fun, it was heavy. So when we finished a year of touring that record we took time off and I just started to mess around with some of the electronic instruments we had been learning and instead of having the user manual open I started to just do what I wanted. We agreed that this time the process should be the opposite: as quick and fun as possible. We didn’t over-think things. We wanted to get back to this idea of how fun it is to make a record and be in a band.

TN: It comes across in the music itself too, it feels like you’ve done a 180-turn, going back to the more spontaneous and instinctual way you worked when you were first around as a band in the early 2000s.
AA: Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. When we first started making music together we were making it for the sake of making songs. It wasn’t about imagining that anyone would listen to them. It was less about what ideas you were imparting to people and more about the experience of making it. I think over time when you make a record you start to become aware that people are going to hear it and that’s when you can decide what kind of message you want to convey. But it can also make you freak out about it.

TN: Yeah and talking about witnessing how people receive your music, you’ve really witnessed a revolution in how people engage with music, through the internet and social media. What has that been like?
AA: Certainly as you said when we started out it was just about music but the cool thing I always liked about being in a band is that it was a multi-media project. There was making videos, making cover art and taking photos. When the social network thing came into the picture it was really daunting for me. I really didn’t embrace the idea because I felt like it was too much information, too much about us, I felt we should be more mysterious. So for a while we didn’t want to do anything with it. It was only on the last record that we thought about this multi-media concept and that the internet thing is just another medium to reference through. So the question was how to use it in a way that felt right, it wasn’t about what we were having for breakfast every morning.

TN: How did you come to that stand point?
AA: Just by thinking about it more conceptually. With the WIXIW record we started to do these borderline ‘fake’ projects, I thought an interesting part of the internet is that you can get away with faking a campaign or faking something and not actually doing it. So we started to do things that weren’t really true, in a way that was intriguing.

TN: And you’ve tied that into this album too, with Julian Gross’ string artwork…
AA: Yeah, Julian made a bunch of ideas for what the artwork could be and we were talking about how I should be vibrant and fun and the opposite of our last, black album colour. One of them was this thing with all this coloured string on it. It was messy, which we liked. We saw the string element as being able to be used in other ways, too. Do you remember that 1980’s artist, Christo?

TN: Yeah, the pink fabric installations.
AA: I haven’t told anyone this but I thought, “Well, we can do something like that with this string, put it everywhere and try and extend the idea.” Why that idea resonated with me was this idea of a mess. It’s a very subjective thing – you could come into my house and go “Oh my god what a fucking mess!” but for me it might be totally normal and clean. It depends how you look at it and it’s the same with artwork and music.

TN: So you covered LA in string?
AA: Yeah! We all bought tons of this string and took it with us wherever we went. All over LA. I did take it to Hawaii once but I didn’t take it out of the bag [laughs]. One person could look at it and go “Oh, its’ a piece of string in a gutter” and another might look at it in the sense that it has so many more connotations to it and so many different levels.

TN: From throwing string all over LA to your progression from being a ‘band’ to experimenting with electronic music, you’ve tried a lot of things. How important is it to expand yourself like that?
AA: I think that’s the beauty of being a creative person. Whether it’s music or any art-form or endeavour the interesting things happen when you step out of your comfort zone.

Mess by Liars is out today, 24th March via Mute

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