Hallucinogens for the ears: Of Montreal's Skeletal Lamping

Of Montreal
Skeletal Lamping

Roxy Satarzadeh

8.5 out of 10

Remember when your mom packed your lunch as a kid? Mondays and Wednesdays were turkey and swiss, Tuesdays and Thursdays were ham and cheese, and Fridays were peanut butter and jelly? That's what I liken today's music scene to: it's pretty much the same old, same old. Nice, but mostly expected. Then there were the times your mom threw in a surprise to mix up the old routine. Maybe taco Tuesdays and pizza Fridays.

Now imagine the lunch your mom would pack for you if she were on acid. That's like the punch Of Montreal packs in there music: wholly unexpected and other worldly. You'll catch yourself saying "what the fuck" on more than one listen. Nothing less is to be expected of course from one of the most innovative and influential bands out in the scene today.

Of Montreal isn't content with just putting out an album based on two shakes of inspiration. No, Kevin Barnes must first soak up the entire world through his senses, process it and break it up into something more human, then finally transcribe it through the recording process for us mere mortals to digest. In other words, Of Montreal's new album, <I>Skeletal Lamping,</I> is some heavy stuff.

Of Montreal was formed in Athens, Georgia in 1997 and consists of Kevin Barnes, Bryan Poole, Dottie Alexander, Jamey Huggins, Davey Pierce, and Ahmed Gallab. As part of the Elephant 6 Collective, they joined the ranks of bands like Neutral Milk Hotel, Elf Power, and Olivia Tremor Control bands known for off-beat music that none-the less usually contained catchy pop-hooks.

To fully appreciate <I>Skeletal Lamping,</I> you have to consider the entire arc of Of Montreal's career and the subversion their music has carried with it all along. Their first record <I>Cherry Peel</I> (1997) was, on the surface, a pretty simple, lo-fi, song-based folk pop record. Upon multiple listens, however, the intricacies of <I>Cherry Peel</I> reveal themselves and you start to notice unusual structures in many songs. Check out "I Can't Stop Your Memory"-- there's no real chorus, just a multi-part pop progression that runs its course, ends, and repeats itself.

Fast forward to the heyday of the Elephant 6 Collective, and Of Montreal has further blossomed and weirdened with the release of <I>The Gay Parade</I> (1999) and particularly <I>Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies: A Variety of Whimsical Verse</I> (2001) which throw the importance of songs out the window in favor of navigating a windy road through an acid dipped narrative. The compositions are masterful and totally catchy, but at the same time inaccessible and dizzying to many. It's not an easy record to understand, but well worth the effort.

Of Montreal could only translate The Beatles' "White Album" through their looking glass for so long before trying to shake things up, and their attempt to step away from the Fab Four kind of flopped. <I>Aldhils Arboretum</I> (2002) is a self proclaimed "album of singles", but only a few songs stand out (most notable "Jennifer Louise"). They were still clinging to the Elephant 6 1960's psych-pop vibe, but now with their experimental tendencies neutered, they were sounding like just another Elephant 6 band.

They changed again on my favorite record, <I>Satanic Panic in the Attic</I> (2004), and further developed those changes on <I>Sunlandic Twins</I> (2005). Both records lost the overt silliness of earlier recordings in favor of stronger "singles." These two albums are hooky, tight, and uber catchy with particularly strong riffs, making them the group's most accessible.

On <I>Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?</I> (2007), their wildly successful album, Of Montreal seems to have found the perfect formula. The songs are weird and structures come and go (see "The Past is a Grotesque Animal"), but the quality of the production succeeds in passing the record off as accessible. And it was accessible, evidenced by the rise in popularity Of Montreal found following its release. There are throwbacks to earlier records; the segue between "Sink the Seine" and "Cato as a Pun" could be rerecorded with slide whistles and acoustic guitars and thrown in to the middle of <I>The Gay Parade.</I>

Now we've arrived at <I>Skeletal Lamping,</I> the "new" Of Montreal answer to <I>Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies: A Variety of Whimsical Verse.</I> There are really only two "single" type tracks: "For Our Elegant Caste" and "ID Engager." It's like Kevin Barnes felt guilty for using the Sixties sound to get so over indulgent in the past, so then he refrained from going as far as he does on <I>Skeletal Lamping</I> until he was confident he really had created his own sound.

As far-fetched and insane as this album is however, I was still able to catch hints of that Sixties sound in songs like "And I've Seen a Bloody Shadow" which has a very distinct Dylanesque quality to it. The opening track, "Nonpareil of Favor," starts out easy enough with that classic electro-pop sound they're known for and love-torn lyrics like "And now that you've happened and you really really came true-ue-ue, I feel I outta thank somebody..." The acid trip vibe of the album kicks in about two minutes into the track when Of Montreal switches gears completely by slowing down the tempo and changing the song to a song within a song. I'd like to think of the second part of the first track to be their weird version of elevator music. The song closes off with a three minute sound-scape of distorted guitars, cymbals, keyboards, and bells that will have you saying "What is this noise?!" before Barnes starts singing, or humming, or whatever he is doing.

The "noise" fades out into the next track "Wicked Wisdom" where Barnes is singing "I'm a mother-fucking headliner, bitch you don't even know it." Once again the song changes entirely about a minute in this time into a sparkling, joyous, ode to the love of his life, wife Nina Barnes. One of my favorite tracks is the beginning of "For our Elegant Caste" where Barnes sings "We can do it soft-core, but you should know I go both ways..."

Once you get over the initial shock of the album, you'll be singing this to yourself day and night...just not in the office please. Barnes seems to be channeling Elton John in "Touched Something's Hollow" before breaking out into "An Eluardian Instance" with a jubilee of peppy horns and keyboards that sound like a high school marching band. Only better. "Gallery Place" has a funk sound with a bouncing bass line, drum machine track and hand claps for rhythm, with Barnes pronouncing his love over and over again. "I want to show you off, I want to make you come, 200 times a day," he sings. Another favorite track is the hip-hop tinged "Death is Not a Parallel Move" which uses minimal beats coupled with crazy vocal effects that lend to an echoey effect that sounds like Barnes narrating your dream.

<I>Skeletal Lamping</I> is a daring move. It would have been easy to follow the success of <I>Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?</I> with more of the same. But I think Kevin Barnes was alarmed when he saw his group universally accepted as an "indie pop" band. Barnes loves the attention, but he's too unsure of it, so this time he's testing it to see if all these new fans can really fathom the whole truth of Of Montreal. <I>Skeletal Lamping</I> is that test.

<I>Skeletal Lamping</I> is a record that is very sure of the curve-balls it throws. It doesn't meander, it cross cuts. It defeats the "singles" ambitions started on <I>Aldhils Arboretum</I>. Even when a particular song is particularly strong melodically (such as "Touched Somethings Hollow"), the next song is so off-the-wall it's as if the listener were thrown out the door and into the next room, reminding the listener this is an album, an Of Montreal album, and can only be enjoyed as such.