2009-02-27 - The Age

Eclectic band to spread its wings

February 27, 2009

Kevin Barnes turns Of Montreal's shows into dance parties, writes Craig Mathieson.

BRYAN Poole is worried. "Have you got my wings?" the guitarist for Of Montreal calls out to a crew member loading up with gear for the eclectic American six-piece's New York City show. He gets an affirmative response and sighs with relief.

"I had a set of wings made for me by a very nice girl who is a fan, bless her heart," explains the genial Poole. "They're tremendous — they fold up and then you can open them up on stage. I had a Brian Eno-like cape thing happening on the Hissing Fauna tour in 2007, so this is definitely the next step."

Wings barely qualify as being outside the norm when it comes to Of Montreal. The band's frontman and songwriter, Kevin Barnes, is a cross-dressing sylph with a taste for extravagant eyeliner and fishnets. Setting the tone for his musicians, he has created a visual element for the band that has turned their live shows into excitable dance parties.

But the band's frenetic live indie-disco is just one part of their make-up. The group boasts a rich back catalogue of nine studio albums, which with 2007's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? and now Skeletal Lamping have grown increasingly diverse, flitting between styles within songs to reveal a songwriter equally fascinated by experimental literature, electro beats and gender politics.

"We're fortunate that Kevin has never had writer's block. He's always on and he's a workaholic," Poole says.

"The day we get home from tour he's into his attic recording. Making music is part of his DNA and it shows — he gets better and better at it. There's always another record in his head."

Poole compares Barnes' current predilection for jumping between styles within a single track to a film editor using jump cuts — Skeletal Lamping's Four our Elegant Caste, for example, skips between Motown bounce, new wave pop and Freddy Mercury's falsetto.

"There have been a million records that tell you a straight story and, really, is anybody going to do it better than Ray Davies?" he says.

Much of the impetus for the band's output comes from Georgie Fruit, a black, 40-something man who has undergone multiple sex reassignments. Near the end of writing Hissing Fauna, a particularly dark and personal record for Barnes, the composer claimed that Georgie Fruit has possessed him, writing the record's upbeat final compositions.

"Georgie kept on writing songs," confirms Poole. "Georgie doesn't filter his thoughts or emotions — everything comes to the fore.

"There are a lot of dark thoughts in your psyche that you don't want to come out except in the odd strange dream that you wouldn't even tell anyone about, but Georgie Fruit just lets it all hang out. His stuff is a bit more buoyant, if weirdly and perversely sexual."

Barnes, a 34-year-old married father of one, has since moved on from Georgie Fruit. "He's left the building," Poole notes. "We hunt out quite a bit — I'm going to miss Georgie."

Of Montreal play the Hi-Fi Bar on March 5 and Golden Plains festival on Saturday, March 7.