Fluxblog
March 5th, 2018 12:15am

The Last Year Has Been Kinda Rough


Of Montreal “Sophie Calle Private Game/Every Person Is A Pussy, Every Pussy Is A Star!”

Kevin Barnes’ work has a sort of internal logic in which electronic music and funk roughly correlates to manic hysteria, and more straightforward psychedelic rock loosely translates to either playful innocence or violent catharsis, depending on the tone. I like most everything Barnes makes to some extent, but I’m most attracted to his funky hysteria – Hissing Fauna and Skeletal Lamping are his masterworks, and I’m very fond of the groovier passages on Paralytic Stalks.

The new Of Montreal record White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood belongs to this end of the Barnes spectrum, and pushes familiar vibes from Hissing and Skeletal into new, more expansive directions. Barnes has mentioned that one of his inspirations for this set of songs was extended 12″ mixes of songs from the ’80s and ’90s, and I absolutely hear that. It’s not just that the tracks are long, but that the grooves play out at a very leisurely pace, and the digressions feel more like logical destinations for the music than the often sudden jarring shifts of previous Barnes compositions. As a result, this music feels a lot more serene and grounded than usual, even as his lyrics express a lot of paranoia, confusion, and exhaustion.

“Sophie Calle Private Game” is basically a love song – or an infatuation song, or a seduction song, depending on the section. Or maybe it’s really an anxiety song, since so much of it is about trying to make sense of his desires, keeping himself from being too impulsive, and attempting to stay in control of his narrative. The chorus is very funky but fraught with caution and mixed emotions, but the groove eventually mellows out considerably in the last few minutes, where the lyrics move beyond “should we hook up?” to some point after consummation. (“You whispered ‘don’t be vulgar’ while I was making you cum” is quite a lyric, by the way.) This is one of my favorite Barnes tricks – showing the gradual evolution of a relationship over the course of a single song.

Buy it from Amazon.

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