Liar, Flower's multifaceted onslaught can be an overwhelming reward

Liar, Flower is a reimagining of two eclectic creative minds – both Garside and her partner Chris Whittingham who make up the electro-folk duo Ruby Throat – and finds Garside flirting with the intoxicating musical endeavours of her past. Fleeting between honeyed infantile melodies, lascivious drawling, and guttural death rattles; Geiger Counter is a serpentine delirium dream conjured by Garside and Whittingham in their perpetual state of isolation whilst living out at sea.

Easily fitting into the role as the bastard child from a ménage à trois between Björk, Iggy Pop and Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle, Geiger Counter oscillates between the ethereal and otherworldly in ballads such as “I Am Sundress (She Of Infinite Flowers)” and “Broken Light”, where you’re being guided through a mysterious world that is the figment of Liar, Flower’s imagination; as well as the slightly jarring crossover between no-wave and noise rock in the likes of “Mud Stars” and “Little Brown Shoes”.

The power of Garside and Whittingham is their ability to transcend the confines of genre and limits of a human voice. “9N – AFE” is barely legible as a terrestrial language as it is Garside simply bellowing into the ether, whilst “Even Through The Darkest Clouds”, is filled with jumbled up vocal takes that are almost nonsensically thrown at you from all angles. Despite the disconcerting assault on the senses; when that infantile voice kicks in again, you’re assimilated to all that preceded it.

Geiger Counter isn’t an album that you can listen to and instantly understand. As such, it’s a poetic symmetry that is tethered to the nature of its creators. It’s multifaceted, and at times a confusing body of work that takes a little patience and an open mind, but would you expect any less from KatieJane Garside?