Album artwork is rarely as appropriate and evocative as the image that graces the sleeve of the vampy, electro-pop outfit of Of Montreal’s ninth studio album, “Skeletal Lamping.”
Album opener “Nonpareil of Favor” begins with a passage of such overt and blissful sincerity as to appear cartoonish, a musical nod to the hedonistic nymphs frolicking in the Edenic landscape on the cover art. Over a doting and luminous melody, principal songwriter Kevin Barnes cries with manic glee to his romantic partner, “And now that you’ve happened, and it really, really, really came true, I feel like I ought to thank somebody, so I’m going to thank you.”
Yet, Barnes abandons this idealized portrait a minute into the track, abruptly shifting the first passage’s inviting groove into a droning propulsive psychedelic freak-out that continues throughout the song’s six minutes. Like the fanged foliage that engulfs the cover art’s epicurean party, the Syd Barrett-styled movement reminds the listener of the darker corners of Of Montreal’s technicolor pop. The second passage of “Nonpareil” serves as fair warning to potential listeners. “Come along for this journey,” Barnes appears to say, “but, let me tell you, things are going to get weird.”
And the listeners who joined Barnes through his previous albums will know that “weird” is certainly an understatement.
On Of Montreal’s eighth studio album, “Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?” Barnes eschewed his character-driven song writing approach, choosing instead to deliver a song cycle of introspective, semi-autobiographical details, intended to excavate the sources of his anguish and personal torment.
Barnes eventually assuaged his pathos on that album by hiking up his falsetto and fishnet stockings with equal aplomb to adopt the persona of Georgie Fruit: an androgynous ex-prostitute who comes off like the neglected love child of Ziggy Stardust and Grace Jones. Think Prince’s character in “Purple Rain,” but only if Prince failed to prevail over Morris Day and the Time and spent his remaining years as a transgender street urchin moonlighting in second-tier synthesized-funk bands. In fact, this description isn’t far removed from the sound and aesthetic that defines Of Montreal’s current incarnation.
Georgie Fruit dominates much of “Lamping,” whether on sexual baiting on the slinky “For Our Elegant Caste” (“We can do it soft core if you want, but you should know I take it both ways”) or the downtrodden gutter-mourning of “St. Exquisite’s Confessions.” Yet Barnes refuses to spend too much time in any one voice on “Skeletal Lamping.” Georgie’s stubborn, optimistic foil List Christee, role-reversing feminists, and deceptive lotharios all share space within Barnes’ fantastical visions.
Whereas “Hissing Fauna” was a singular, cohesive concept of personal significance for Barnes, “Lamping” is a schizophrenic, fractured statement, each character depicting a different element of Barnes’ psyche.
The structure of the songs on “Lamping” shares this fragmented sensibility, as Barnes frantically moves from brief passage to brief passage within a song, lacking concern for the preconceptions of what makes a pop song meaningful or effective.
The bleak, intimate lament “Touched Something’s Hollow” segues to the lilting horns and wistful nostalgia of “An Eluardian Instance,” which shifts to the funk-stomp and sexual abrasion (“I want to squeeze your thighs / I want to kiss your eyelids / And corrupt your dreams”) of “Gallery Piece.”
The end result is an exhausting and testing listen, but it may be the most revealing glimpse into the creative spirit that provided both the torment and the salvation of Barnes on “Hissing Fauna.”
After fourteen disjointed and shape-shifting tracks, Barnes closes “Lamping” with “Id Engager,” the most unfettered and uplifting disco-pop song offered on the album. It doesn’t match the ambition or scope of the previous songs, but it’s nonetheless the perfect end to the schizo rush of the album.
After ceaselessly exploring the diverse and puzzling canals within his mind throughout “Lamping,” Barnes finally settles down with the nymphs of his cover art to lavish in the hedonistic party before it all crashes down again.
““ Ross Rinehart
E-mail Rinehart at rrinehart@media.ucla.edu.