In the wake of becoming
Angus Andrew's solo project,
Liars only grew more prolific, issuing several releases in little over a year: The project's eighth album,
TFCF, the soundtrack
1/1, and
Titles with the Word Fountain all arrived within months of each other. Recorded during the
TFCF sessions,
Titles serves as a sequel to that album and holds up a broken mirror to its sounds and emotions. Its snippets of field recordings and electronic experiments communicate the losses
Andrew experienced at the time -- the dissolution of his creative partnership with former member
Aaron Hemphill, the death of his father -- in more abstract ways. "Pure Context" distills
TFCF's disorienting atmosphere; "P/AM" is equally vast and claustrophobic; "Fantail Creeps"' combination of screeching creatures and silent movie organ is at once droll and dread-inspiring; and the seesawing arpeggiated synth on "Extracts from the Seated Sequence" is almost cartoonishly ominous. The way these miniatures combine to create an overarching mood recalls
1/1 -- ironically, the last music
Andrew recorded with
Hemphill -- as much as it does
TFCF.
Titles with the Word Fountain's more fleshed-out tracks are among its standouts. The jagged "Face in Ski Mask Bodies to the Wind" sounds like classic
Liars; meanwhile, the brash yet wounded "Murdrum" echoes the drifting, abandoned feel that made
TFCF so surprisingly moving.
Titles with the Word Fountain ends on an oddly serene note with "A Kind of Stopwatch," which gives a sense of closure to the
TFCF era. Even though it's clear why these tracks didn't quite fit on that album,
Titles with the Word Fountain continues its mood skillfully and should appeal to fans of
Liars' most experimental music. ~ Heather Phares