As the outro kicks in and the bass drops out on his remix of Ganser’s “People Watching,” Angus Andrew of Liars loops the beginning of the last lyric, “Talk until the words lose meaning,” so that singer Nadia Garofalo’s voice repeats “talk…talk…talk…” until it’s just another part of the arrangement. Andrew worked with the Chicago post-punk band in the studio on the recording of the darkly groovy original track—produced as part of their upcoming EP Nothing You Do Matters—and he brings his own spin on the mix, piling on synths and processing the vocals until they sound like a garbled transmission beamed into a club soundsystem from a UFO. But he also underlines some of the most compelling elements of Ganser’s past releases, amplifying their propulsive rhythms and acerbic social commentary.
It’s not Ganser’s first remix project, arriving as it does on the heels of Look at the Sun, which featured songs from their sophomore LP Just Look at That Sky as reimagined by artists like Sad13, Bartees Strange, and Algiers. It is the first time they’ve collaborated with someone who’s also produced them in person, though, and it arrives as part of a release that sees Ganser continuing to branch out and level up their ambitions. As they explained, Nothing You Do Matters was titled in a spirit of “cheerful nihilism” marked by experimentation with vintage synths in the studio and immersive LED technology in the videos for “People Watching” and the yet unreleased “What Me Worry?”
You can stream Liars’ “People Watching” remix below, and pre-order the EP ahead of its October 5 release. Following the Pitchfork Music Festival, where singer/bassist Alicia Gaines served as creative director, Gaines and drummer Brian Cundiff also spoke with us briefly about the experience of recording with Angus Andrew and the way it shaped their thinking about their next record.
I know you worked with Angus on recording “People Watching”—how did the idea to have him remix the song come about? What was the conversation like around producing that?
Gaines: We learned so much by making remixes for our last album in 2020, with that being the only collaboration possible at the time. I think it made us a bit bolder in sending out a nice note to people who share a similar mindset. To our surprise, people want to work with us. Especially in quarantine, that was thrilling. When we first spoke to Angus, I think I mentioned that we’re never satisfied and don’t like to bore ourselves, which is something I’ve observed with Angus’ work in Liars. I think he understood why we were coming to him specifically for his point of view.
At first, we mistakenly thought we’d be working with Angus over email from Australia, but we were cosmically lucky in that we were geographically close enough at the time to collaborate in-person at Key Club Recording Company [in Benton Harbor, Michigan]. We do a fair amount of our own production in the demo process, so when Angus took over, I think he had a lot of ideas that were split between the final track and the remix. It was a natural evolution of everything he was generating.
Do you remember hearing the finished remix for the first time? What was your reaction, and what do you think of the finished product?
Cundiff: He was one of the few remixers we’ve had who incorporated my original drum track, so I was a fan of that! I know there were some ideas and suggestions that Angus had in the studio that didn’t end up getting into the final mixes, so I was quite curious to hear if some of that made it into his remix, and sure enough it’s chock full of bells and whistles. It wasn’t much of a surprise that it ended up being quite a danceable remix that would blend in at a club. Angus acted as a bit of a hype man, bobbing and weaving to keep us up and pumped for our performances. Couldn’t be happier with the result, if I’m being honest!
Reading about this EP, from the way you experimented in the studio to everything that went into making the videos, it feels very evolutionary for Ganser—what’s been your biggest takeaway from the process?
Cundiff: We’ve always gone into the studio with a pretty good idea of what the song structures will be. I think the takeaway this time is that it’s OK to head in with a sort of black-and-white draft that will be colorized in the studio. We found that if we tinker around a bit with the in-house studio gear and get the perspective of a producer like Angus, who has really pushed boundaries with his own work, we can open up some doors that we otherwise may not have walked through.
Gaines: I’m coming to realize some of my favorite releases are EPs. They’re a great way to take on new ideas, new processes, all in a way that really let us narrow our focus as opposed to doing so many new things over the course of an LP. I’m excited to react to this work with what’s next working on the third record.
