An open letter to Of Montreal front man Kevin Barnes:
Three years ago you released the last in a series of seven consecutive albums of Elephant Six-style psych pop, The Sunlandic Twins. Sure, you threw in a few curveballs, adding synths on “Oslo in the Summertime” and “The Party’s Crashing Me,” but these tracks still followed the tried and true Of Montreal style; they just added a new instrument.
I was glad that Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? received the sort of critical acclaim that your earlier work deserved, even if I thought the album wasn’t particularly great. Plus, it was refreshing to see you taking a new step—you had been releasing pretty much the same album since 1997.
But why did that new step have to cost so much of what made Of Montreal Of Montreal? Why’d you have to get a glam alter ego? Why did you have to perform a full concert in the nude? Of Montreal’s style was always a bit showy, but I would have been fine if Hissing Fauna and the style that accompanied it was as far as you went. Did you have to go this far down the rabbit hole?
You’re more into drama than ever (“Triphallus”? Seriously?), and you’ve even expanded your scope to include all things sexual.
This would be fine if you followed in the footsteps of your biggest musical influences here—David Bowie, Elton John, T. Rex, and Sylvester, all of whom mixed theatricality with sexuality—but instead, you work in psychedelics, too, and listening to your lysergic sex is anything but arousing. The only times Lamping feels unsettling seem to be the wrong ones.
While it would have been nice if you’d dropped the acid influence from your lyrics, the music would have benefited if you had kept more of the psych-pop musical influence. “An Eluardian Instance” is a great example of how you can work your traditional psych stylings into your new look. The same could be said for “For Our Elegant Caste” if the lyrics weren’t so god-awful that I hit the skip button ever time.
“St. Exquisite’s Confessions” runs into the same issue, and then you’ve got songs like “Women’s Studies” which mixes an newfound tendency for cringe-worthy lyrics with an over-reaching scope (see also: “Wicked Wisdom,” “Plastis Wafers”).
When you’re trying to make something that is as serious—well, meta-serious—as Skeletal Lamping, there’s no joke to be in on, just a magnificent, psychedelic car wreck to view from afar.
Best,
—Matthew Collins
Voice’s Choices: “An Eludian Instance,”“Gallery Piece”
