Indie Pop Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping (October 7)

[Rob]

Skeletal Lamping is the tentative title of the ninth studio album by Athens-based band Of Montreal. The title of the album is taken from a line in Faberge Falls For Shuggie, which appears on of Montreal's album Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?

In an interview with Wireless Bollinger, Kevin Barnes stated that the album will be composed of hundreds of short segments ranging from thirty to fifty seconds in length. Barnes also remarked that the forthcoming album will deviate from the traditional pop song structures employed by the group in the past while still retaining the melodic and poppy sound listeners have come to expect from Of Montreal. [1] In fact, a new song called Softcore, which the group performed on July 15th at the Pitchfork music festival, seemed very much in the vein of older pop songs done by the band. "Our Last Summer of Independence", which was played live during the band's fall 2007 tour, is another new song which incorporates the traditional pop sound, with a slight deviation into surf rock. Other possible "Skeletal Lamping" tracks have debuted during live shows, including "Exquisite Confessions" and "Mingusings". According to Kevin Barnes at the Canopy Club show on Oct. 3, 2007, the new album is set to be released "sometime in October [2008]," on Polyvinyl Record Company. This was confirmed again by Kevin on Oct. 12, 2007 at the Roxy show.

[foggy]

Thanks Rob. Sounds interesting, quite a long wait though.

[Starlite]

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.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/...amping_details

[foggy]

Thanks for that, J.

[Rob]

This has been given an October 7th release date.

[Rob]

Download the first single "Id Engager" here:

http://stereogum.com/mp3/of%20Montre...%20Engager.mp3

[Donald]

I like it.

[Starlite]

The lampings are hardly skeletal this year, but quite fleshy and overflowing. Polyvinyl and Paste Magazine have announced the many different iterations of Skeletal Lamping which will be available upon the album’s release on October 7. There will be seven different formats from which to choose: CD, 180-gram LP, T-shirt, tote bag, button set, paper lantern, and wall decal set. All seven will feature a digital download of the album. Pre-orders should be available around September 1.

http://ofmontreal.net/blog/2008/08/1...many-lampings/

The only problem is deciding which one to get!

[Rob]

Another song to sample:

Nonpareil Favor

http://downloads.pitchforkmedia.com/...of%20Favor.mp3

[Rob]

This was a pretty huge letdown.

[sipowicz]

I am still waiting for it...I preordered in from PolyVinyl and it should be here tommorrow.

[sipowicz]

Originally Posted by Rob

This was a pretty huge letdown.

Got it...it is alright, I don't hate it, it remiinds me of "Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies: A Variety of Whimsical Verse" which I love, but I don't know, I guess I didn't see them taking steps back, I saw them taking steps forward...I will listen to it a few more times I see what comes to be of the album.