Liars Round Up Thom Yorke, Devendra Banhart and More for 'Sisterworld' Remixes

Art-rock trio Liars recently told Spinner that the seedier side of Los Angeles was a major influence on the isolated feelings on the group's fifth album, 'Sisterworld.' But instead of isolating the 11 tracks to just what their intended output became, they turned over each song on the album to a range of different artists, including Thom Yorke, TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimple, Devendra Banhart, the Melvins and Atlas Sound to create new versions of the songs, basically recreating 'Sisterworld' track-by-track for a whole new experience.

"For each song, we picked it out to who we admired and who we thought would make it interesting," guitarist/vocalist Angus Andrew tells Spinner. "We gave them the track and basically said, 'There are no rules. You should feel comfortable if you record your car for three minutes and then send it back to us.'"

The resulting effort sheds new, more atmospheric light on 'Sisterworld.' Devendra Banhart's remix of 'The Overachievers' reduces the song to a very sparse and spacey composition, while Thom Yorke's 'Proud Evolution' sounds much more electronica-influenced, a bit like his solo work featured on 2008's 'The Eraser.' The most radical transformation comes in the form of Atlas Sound's remix of the dark guitar jangle of 'Here Comes All the People.' Atlas Sound principle Bradford Cox doubles the length while creating a fast harpsichord motif running through for the first minute before it calms down into a warbly piano piece. Needless to say, it's a total transformation, which is exactly what Andrew wanted.

"It's the idea of 'what is a remix?' to me," he says. "It's a really formulaic genre, where the idea is you give your hit single to a cool DJ who produces and they make five different versions of it that can go onto the club. There's no wiggle room with that. It could be more exciting, because obviously collaboration is such a great thing, but it's a daunting aspect where you have to be a genius or something at running computer programs to do a good remix. What we thought is that we'd give a bunch of songs to people that we know and are familiar with what a remix is and see what other voice they could bring to the medium."

Liars will take 'Sisterworld' on the road starting on April 10 at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles.