Of Montreal frontman (andPaste's November 2008 cover subject) Kevin Barnes and his wife Nina have been through a lot together since they met at a music festival in Oslo, Norway in 2001: A few amazing nights in Europe, months of long-distance email correspondence, flights across the Atlantic, a tour, plenty of musical and artistic collaboration, a wedding, a child, struggling to pay the bills, a painful breakup and a joyful reunion. In this exclusive Paste interview, Nina Barnes sheds some light on her husband and his work, and tells her side of the Of Montreal story.
By
Steve LaBate
on November 21, 2008 1:00 PM|Permalink
Kevin Barnes is responsible for the music of Of Montreal, but his brother, visual artist David Barnes is a major factor in the band's aesthetic concept. David has worked on everything from T-shirts and posters to the band’s mind-boggling stage show and trippy album art, including the groundbreaking packaging for Of Montreal’s latest release, Skeletal Lamping (pictured above). While working on our November cover story, Paste associate editor Steve LaBate sat down with David for some insight into his work and relationship with his brother.
By
Steve LaBate, photo by Jeremy Cowart
on November 14, 2008 11:25 AM|Permalink
In addition to their long chats at Jittery Joe's in Athens, Ga., while preparing for Paste's November cover story Associate Editor Steve LaBate and Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes engaged in a lightning-round of free-association with the band's discography. Read the uncut interview here, and peruse the workings of Barnes' subconscious below.
By
Steve LaBate, photo by Jeremy Cowart
on November 13, 2008 4:10 PM|Permalink
Paste's Associate Editor, Steve LaBate, sat down with Of Montreal frontman (and our November cover subject) Kevin Barnes for two hour-long interviews outside Jittery Joe’s Coffee in the artist's hometown of Athens, Ga. Here, uncut and in its entirety, is their two-part conversation.
The females, he-males and she-males of Paste's November cover subjects Of Montreal will bring their weird and wonderful live show to Atlanta's Tabernacle tomorrow night, Saturday, Nov. 8th. And we've got two pairs of free tickets to give away!
By
Steve LaBate
on October 22, 2008 7:00 AM|Permalink
photography by Jeremy Cowart
After toiling in relative obscurity for nearly a decade, Kevin Barnes’ constantly mutating indie-pop project Of Montreal is finally poised to breach the mainstream. On new album Skeletal Lamping, Barnes navigates a choppy sea of sexuality while shining a spotlight on the strange beasts and angels lurking just beneath his soul’s surface.
As the early-March sun sets on the Langerado Music Festival, a ninja and a half-dozen masked, body-suited drones—all brandishing heads impaled on spears—dance in ecstatic mystery across the stage, the menacing pulse of “The Past is a Grotesque Animal” undulating over the dusk-lit swamps of Florida’s Everglades. In a grand climax to this bizarre ritual taking place on the Big Cypress Seminole reservation, Of Montreal frontman Kevin Barnes emerges from a coffin almost entirely naked—albeit covered head-to-toe in shaving cream—and steps to the mic to finish the set’s final song.
By
Jesse Jarnow
on October 21, 2008 8:00 AM|Permalink
-- always a sense of a language that you don't quite know, like
Of Montreal leader follows
break-through with less-danceable kaleidoscope of freakideakiness;
declares self black she-male
A consciousness set to shuffle, of
Montreal’s Skeletal Lamping pours in wave after wave of sudden
layered harmonies, disco-McCartney basslines, glammy confessions and
impenetrable twin-talk too intense to characterize any one song as
any one thing. “I’m just a black she-male, and I don’t know
what you people are all about,” mastermind Kevin Barnes frets on
“Wicked Wisdom.” Though far from hookless, Skeletal Lamping
dispenses with the easy choruses of last year’s Hissing Fauna, Are
You the Destroyer? in favor of overload and come-ons like “you’re
the only one with whom I’d role-play Oedipus Rex.” Barnes
experiments ruthlessly, usually via the short-attention span jumps
that characterized his pre-liberation work. Amid its admirably
complex compositional compressions, Skeletal Lamping feels like a
triple-LP sprawler, despite clocking in at less than an hour. For
those who have the patience to hang with Barnes and his freak-outs,
it could be a masterpiece.
Watch the video for Of Montreal's "Id Engager" here.
By
Loren Lankford
on September 24, 2008 10:04 AM|Permalink
photo by Rennie Solis
In a weird (but not entirely surprising) turn of events, Of Montreal has been forced to push the release of its new album, Skeletal Lamping, back by two weeks from Oct. 7 to Oct. 21. But not for the reasons you may think.
By
Jeremy Medina
on September 10, 2008 2:56 PM|Permalink
Frontman Kevin Barnes and his of Montreal crew are pulling out all the stops to build buzz for their latest record, Skeletal Lamping, due in stores Oct. 7. In addition to expanding on its previously announced tour dates, the band is sponsoring a somewhat unorthodox pre-release listening party: a laser show.
By
Josh Jackson
on September 8, 2008 4:04 PM|Permalink
People sometimes ask me what a typical day looks like for the editor-in-chief of Paste, and all I can think is that there are few typical days. But I'd like today to be typical. As I write this, I'm sitting in our a/v studio, watching Kevin Barnes pose for our November cover. One of my favorite photographers, Jeremy Cowart, is in town from Nashville, and Kevin is dressed like he's ready for Cirque de Soleil. We're listening to a mix of Shuggie Otis, Isley Brothers and Danger Doom on the stereo, and a filter casts magenta lighting across the room—which a couple rum and cokes into the day is a little trippy and very relaxing.
By
Michael Saba
on August 13, 2008 10:40 AM|Permalink
lamping [lam-ping]: -verb 1. Chilling, hanging, relaxing 2. A sonic bombardment of psych-pop from Kevin Barnes' darkest heart that might help change the way albums are packaged in the future
By
Kasia Galazka
on July 14, 2008 10:23 AM|Permalink
As details of the Of Montreal's upcoming album Skeletal Lamping trickle in throughout the interwebs, at least one thing is official: a dab of fall tour dates. We last caught up with DJ List Christee (IE: frontman Kevin Barnes) at SXSW, who informed us that his new jams will include "crazy, functional packaging."
By
Andrew Leahey
on July 9, 2008 3:30 PM|Permalink
Rothbury kicked into high gear on
Friday, as Jakob Dylan ushered in the afternoon with a set of dusty
Americana tunes. Sporting a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses that
could've reflected a nuclear blast, Dylan looked like Sheriff Cooley
from O Brother, Where Art Thou? while singing in a comfortable,
cool baritone. “Let me be the first up here to say ‘Happy 4th of
July,’” he said, drawing applause from the crowd of Wallflowers
fans and wandering passerby.
By
Steve LaBate
on June 11, 2008 3:39 PM|Permalink
photo by Tim Soter
Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav was the original “Cold Lamper,” but now Athens, Ga., indie rockers Of Montreal are doing a little lampin’ of their own. Skeletal Lamping, to be exact, which is the title of their just-mastered new album, due out this October.
By
David Marek
on April 4, 2008 11:23 AM|Permalink
photo by David Marek
In news about an Elephant 6 film project that isn’t Major Organ and the Adding Machine, there is a new Of Montreal DVD in the works. Writing on the E6 message board (thanks to You Ain't No Picasso for the tip!), Of Montreal’s Late B.P. Helium announced that "we are working on a DVD. hopefully it will be out this fall. the last L.A. shows were recorded and will be a part of it." Although there is no trailer for the DVD yet as of yet, you can check out some amateur YouTube footage from the L.A. shows, featuring Kevin Barnes performing in fishnets and a mini-skirt. (He suffers for fashion, or whatever.)
In other Of Montreal news, as previously reported, the group has contributed a track to the The Green Owl Comp: A Benefit For The Energy Action Coalition. Released and distributed online (hooray for reducing your carbon footprint!), the compilation will benefit the Energy Action Coalition, and will feature Of Montreal’s "Feminine Effects." The track was speculated to be on the band’s upcoming album Skeletal Lamping, which Barnes spoke to us about recently at SXSW. The comp hits the web on April 8 and boasts an all-star lineup of Feist, Muse, Deerhoof, Bloc Party, Pete Yorn and others.
And if the Elephant 6 guys are reading this, we’re still waiting on Major Organ and the Adding Machine. Please, don’t make us come up to Athens. Paste rolls deep.
Check out the interview we got with Kevin Barnes, from Of Montreal, the first of our SXSW 2008 content. Keep checking back, more videos are on the way!
By
Austin L. Ray
on March 24, 2008 8:25 AM|Permalink
photo by Tim Soter
Paste had a dandy time at SXSW this year. Aside from all the usual, fun nonsense involving new bands, beer, blogging and BBQ, we hosted three day parties with our friends at Stereogum. Closing out our final day was DJ List Christee, better known as Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes.
"I intended to do something really cool and come to SXSW and establish myself as this fantastic modern DJ," Barnes told us in an interview immediately following his set. "But then I didn't have time, so I established myself as a completely uninspired loser DJ. But I made up a DJ name, which I think is essential. I always think of these characters and give them names, and I like the name List. It's such a bizarre first name. They say you can't trust a man with two first names, like Peter George or something. But List Christee, you can trust her. She doesn't even have a first name."
Barnes set under the List Christee moniker was less traditional DJ (there were no turntables or microphones) and more traditional-guy-at-a-party-with-a-laptop. But the music selection was excellent, and the Of Montreal frontman doesn't have any high-falutin' DJ ambitions to speak of, anyway.
"I don't even feel like it's a performance," Barnes says. "I'm not a DJ. I'm a real-time playlist arranger. A DJ pumps up the crowd and scratches and does creative stuff on the fly. I was basically just chilling and playing music. During my first set ever, I was an iPod DJ in Oslo at this little bar and they actually pulled the plug on me. 'We don't play that kind of music.' I was playing The Cure, Beck and things that were considered more mainstream by them. It is really humiliating to have the plug pulled on you, and then to have to do the cold walk of shame home with your iPod between your legs."
But Barnes hasn't spent all his downtime since 2007's excellent Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? arranging playlists. He's also been working on the follow-up to that critically acclaimed album. Set for a tentative October release, Barnes says the new album is called Skeletal Lamping.
"This sounds pretty pompous, but I was reading Dylan Thomas poems," he says. "He has such an interesting way of phrasing things. His language is so beautiful. I had this silly project where I would read one of his poems and then use that spirit and write my own poem. 'Skeletal Lamping' was a term that came out of that. I actually used it in one of the songs on our last record, 'Faberge Falls for Shuggie.' I was kind of thinking that would be a cool name for the record. And it would be so bizarre if I named this record Skeletal Lamping and the next record Controller's Sphere and the next record False Priest, because those are the three phrases I say at the end of that one song. So who knows if I'll do that with the next record? I probably won't. But maybe I will."
Barnes says he currently has about 50 minutes of music, which is the length he'd like the album to be, but has plans to record more and trim the fat over the coming months. His mastering appointment in May will keep him to that task, especially since he seems to have a little trouble holding back his songwriting.
"I could've easily made a double album, but I feel like people's attention spans don't go there anymore," Barnes says. "Mine doesn't go there either. It's really exciting and fun to release everything you've been writing, but at the same time, I want to be concise and really effective. I want people to get to the end of the record. I don't want them to be like, 'It's really great, but I always turn it off around the sixth song.'"
Meanwhile, Barnes insists that Skeletal Lamping will pave new stylistic ground for Of Montreal. Citing Health (who played directly before Barnes at the Paste/Stereogum party) as an example, he explains that the new record will likely be a heavier affair than past Of Montreal albums.
"I'm trying to create tension with the music instead of it always just being sun-kissed and happy and disco-y or whatever," he says. "I'm trying to create more sound collages, having them fade into more melodic parts and basically genre hop like I always have. But the new genre I'm including in it is this noisy tension music. Hopefully it works. It's not angry, really. When music is like that, playing with tension, creating discord and using dissonance, it's exciting for me. I don't think of it as angry. I think of it as emotive. When you hear stuff like that, it's not grotesque sounding; it's really cool. You're not only like, 'I wanna dance,' you're like, 'This hits me really deeply and I don't know why.'"
Barnes also promises "really crazy, functional packaging" for the new album that will serve as more than "a little cardboard box that is a conveyor of the CD," but did not divulge any specifics just yet. In the meantime, if you're a resident of Belgium, England, or, um, Michigan, you can catch his band (possibly working on its noise, tension) at one of the following dates:
May 9 - Brussels, Belgium @ Botanique 11 - Camber Sussex, England @ All Tomorrow's Parties
July 4 - Rothbury, Mich. @ Rothbury Festival
August 10 - Leicester, England @ Summer Sundae Weekender
By
Mark Krotov
on December 18, 2007 12:00 AM|Permalink
Georgia was good to 2007, and in return, 2007 was good to Georgia. Athens in particular had a pretty great year, and just one of its contributions was Of Montreal’s wonderful Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, which was jam-packed with 12-minute odes to emotional collapse, ruminations on the dehumanizing characteristics of Norway, and this writer’s favorite lyric of the year (guess which one). No wonder the album cozied up at #31 on Paste’s list.
Well, there’s always room for more craziness in Georgia’s biggest little city (sorry, Cartersville), and next year’s release of Major Organ and the Adding Machine confirms this fact. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because it’s also the title of a 2001 album by members of the Elephant Six Collective. Next year’s Organ is the cinematic counterpart of the album, and the whole thing will be released by Orange Twin in a DVD/expanded CD set. The film will feature the likes of Of Montreal’s Kevin Banes and the elusive Jeff Mangum and many other Crazy Stars of Athens (a brand new term. Coined right here.).
Judging by this bootleg recording of the Major Organ and the Adding Machinetrailer, 2008 will be an even better year for Georgia.
By
Jeremy Goldmeier
on October 3, 2007 4:24 PM|Permalink
Either Of Montreal really is the coolest band in the world to play in, or else it's some sort of creepy, indie-rock cult. How else does one explain the group's relentless touring and recording schedule? By now, it's safe to say that Kevin Barnes has the prolific songwriting addiction to match that of Robert Pollard or Ryan Adams. But even more remarkable is the fact that his backing band seems willing to follow him to the ends of the Earth on his quest to freak out every rock club he can find. And still the band's stage show grows more bizarre. There must be a mutiny afoot...
Make that a "Gender Mutiny Tour," the splendid title for Of Montreal's latest jaunt. Take that, gender! The tour launch coincides with the digital release of the band's latest rare release: the acoustic-only, Sony Connect Set EP. Recorded by Barnes and his longtime guitarist The Late BP Helium, the four-song set includes covers of Neil Young and Love Is All. And as we reported last week, Of Montreal's lengthily-titled EP If He Is Protecting Our Nation... will receive a Polyvinyl reissue at the end of the month.
Sony Connect Set EP track list:
1. Harvest Moon (Neil Young cover)
2. Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse
3. Make Out, Fall Out, Make Up (Love Is All cover)
4. We Were Born The Mutants Again With Leafling
Gender Mutiny Tour (all dates w/ MGMT, Grand Buffet except Nov. 20) -
October 3 - Urbana, Ill. @ Canopy Club
4 - Milwaukee, Wisc. @ Pabst Theatre
5 - Minneapolis, Minn. @ First Avenue
6 - Chicago, Ill. @ Cabaret Metro
7 - Chicago, Ill. @ Cabaret Metro
8 - Oberlin, Ohio @ Hales Gym at Oberlin College
9 - Detroit, Mich. @ Majestic Theatre
10 - Buffalo, N.Y. @ The Tralf
11 - Philadelphia, Pa. @ Trocadero
12 - Boston, Mass. @ The Roxy
13 - New York, N.Y. @ Roseland
14 - Baltimore, Md. @ Rams Head Live
31 - Athens, Ga. @ 40 Watt Club
November 1 - New Orleans, La. @ House of Blues
2 - Houston, Texas @ Numbers
3 - Austin, Texas @ Fun Fun Fun Fest
4 - Dallas, Texas @ Granada Theatre
5 - El Paso, Texas @ Club 101
6 - Tempe, Ariz. @ Marquee
7 - Tucson, Ariz. @ Rialto
8 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ Avalon
9 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ Avalon
10 - La Jolla, Calif. @ Mandeville Auditorium UCSD
12 - San Francisco, Calif. @ Great American Music Hall
13 - San Francisco, Calif. @ Great American Music Hall
14 - San Francisco, Calif. @ Great American Music Hall
16 - Salt Lake City, Utah @ In The Venue
17 - Denver, Colo. @ Ogden Theater
18 - Lawrence, Kansas @ Liberty Hall
19 - St. Louis, Mo. @ The Pageant
20 - Atlanta, Ga. @ Variety Playhouse
By
Jeremy Goldmeier
on September 27, 2007 10:06 AM|Permalink
The Zombies never really got much love during their brief lifetime, mostly because they were the bookish nerds of the British Invasion. While the Rolling Stones and The Who were out getting wasted and smashing things on a Friday night, Ron Argent, Colin Blunstone and company would stay at home for a quiet evening of studying musical theory and listening to Dave Brubeck. Or so we're going to assume.
In proper undead fashion, however, the Zombies have prospered posthumously. First came that left-field chart smash "Time of the Season" in 1969 (after the group had disbanded), and over the ensuing years the group's DNA has spread like a virus, infecting just about every band in the indie pop kingdom. One of those Zombified groups is Of Montreal.
It comes as no surprise, then, that Kevin Barnes' troupe paid tribute to the Zombies once before, on an odds 'n' ends compilation they released back in 2003. The comp was called (deep breath) If He Is Protecting Our Nation Then Who Will Protect Big Oil? Our Children?. Gee, who could that title be referring to? The album has since gone out of print, but Stereogum has the hookup, posting Of Montreal's cover of the Zombies' chipper "Friends of Mine." If you enjoy that, then it might interest you to hear that Who Will Protect Big Oil is slated for a reissue on Oct. 23 via Polyvinyl.
Want more free Of Montreal cover action? Swing by Pitchfork to hear Of Montreal taking on Swedish invaders Love Is All.
Signs of Life 2008: Best Music
Leona Naess - "All is Fair"
the everybodyfields - "Worth Keeping"
TVotR, The Roots, Cee-Lo, more re-imagine Nat King Cole
Live at Paste: Whitley
[Above: Detail of illustrated tote bag by Nina Barnes' Gemini Tactics for Of Montreal's limited-edition Skeletal Lamping swag.]
