Liars’ Angus Andrew has announced his first album in five years, A Ban on Plastic Bag Bans. Inspired by a move to Kalamazoo, Michigan and titled after an actual law on the state’s books, the record is out March 5, 2027 via Mute. Below, watch the music video for lead single “Ice Pick, Kalamazoo,” which Andrew shot on 3D camera at the city’s No Kings rally.
After a move to Kalamazoo with his wife and daughter, Andrew experienced a toxic air crisis originating from a local packaging factory. “It wasn’t just the environment that was polluted,” Andrew said in press materials, “it was also my mind.” Of A Ban on Plastic Bag Bans, he explained, “It’s got more to do with the perception of things than modern pollution—how these things that can be a constant in your life become sort of ingrained and invisible.”
Since the release of the last Liars LP, 2021’s The Apple Drop, Andrew started a label, No Gold, and an experimental festival series called Essential Tremors. He’s got a run of UK and European shows lined up for October, including a front-to-back performance of 2006’s Drum’s Not Dead at Poland’s Unsound Festival to mark that record’s 20th anniversary.
Read about Drum’s Not Dead at No. 69 in The 200 Best Albums of the 2000s.
A Ban on Plastic Bag Bans:
01 Happy or Not
02 Ice Pick, Kalamazoo
03 Laced Plume
04 Urgent as Always
05 Deep Deeper
06 Disaster Tropes
07 Beat Creep Some Eyes
08 Real Time Trespasser
09 Shame!
10 Retention Arc
11 Out of Order
Liars:
10-02 Bucharest, Romania – Control Club
10-03 Nantes, France – Le Lieu Unique
10-05 Milan, Italy – Arci Bellezza
10-09 Krakow, Poland – Unsound
10-10 Belgrade, Serbia – Changeover Festival
10-12 Prague, Czech Republic – Punctum
10-13 Berlin, Germany – Neue Zunkuft
10-15 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paradiso
10-17 Kortrijk, Netherlands – Atelier Nooitgedacht
10-18 Liege, Belgium – Kultura
10-20 London, England – Moth Club
10-22 Paris, France – Boule Noire
10-24 Copenhagen, Denmark – Ideal Bar