been listening to of Montreal a lot in the past few days
they're just better than any other indie band of the past ~40 years aren't they.
i think a lot of the problem with indie type music (especially yankee bullshit) is this constant effort to make the perfect album. probably the (self) mythologising of a 10.0 from Pitchfork has fed into that. but the problem is now bands won't dare take any risks. just look at the extended lengths between albums as Animal Collective have progressed through their career, or how long it has been since Telepathe's first album, or how Air France split up because after trying for several years they couldn't get any better.
you don't have any of that with of Montreal - it's idea after idea after idea after idea. Kevin Barnes realises that it's not about perfectly executing everything that comes into your head but realising it some way and then letting the listeners deal with it. hey, we combined the experimental orchestral music of edgar varese with the aesthetic of funkadelic. hey, sometimes we sound a bit like queen, prince and john cage put together. sometimes we just sound like XTC. but all the time we sound like of Montreal and all the time we sound like we've put our last album behind us and are moving on.
- Relevant artist taggings:
- None
Thread not appearing correctly? Click here to rebuild | Report this
Twitter
Facebook
Last.fm
SoundCloud
MySpace
Friendster
RSS
I posted this to another website
this [Paralytic Stalks] is my album of the year and my favourite OM album by a mile. it's almost completely abandoned OM's sassy zine-courting indie-pop remit, so I can see why it's lost most of the band's fans. for prog-head sonic-junkies like me though, it's bliss
just utterly fearless and spectacular, and to convey mental breakdown so vividly and imaginatively while composing *really* good rollercoaster-ride songs is a really difficult thing to do - kudos mr barnes
***
If I had to pick one track it'd be Ye, Renew The Plaintiff, but it's a very great record. FWIW the previous OM album I liked the most was the second half of Skeletal Lamping
But Hissing Fauna is the "perfect album"
So I disagree
well
I think Hissing Fauna is maybe their best though it's not an easy shout but it's definitely the closest they've made to what is this old fashioned version of a 'perfect album'. but i think culture is past all these silly ideas at this point and one of the (many) reasons i think of Montreal should be considered as part of this john cage / miles davies / sun city girls / the fall / wiley / etc. lineage, and therefore one of the best bands there is or could be, is that they (he) doesn't care about all this nonsense like crafting 'the' 'perfect' 'album'
I can't stand this band
Of Montreal are a great band, and I totally agree about Hissing Faurna being a great album. Their live shows are memorable events.
Although I do find some of their lyrics a bit quirky, even awkward, they've grown on me over the years. Long may they continue.
tell me some culprits of striving for perfection
I don't think AC are, I think they always followed their hearts.
"prog-head sonic-junkies"
I have never cringed so hard in my life.
Music taste:
Jackson Browne, Sleater-Kinney, Jonathan Richman, The Yummy Fur, The Housemartins, The Vaselines, Crystal Stilts, Loretta Lynn, Henry's Dress, Television, The Apples In Stereo, The Louvin Brothers, Don Lennon, Fair Ohs, Darren Hanlon, Camper Van Beethoven, Judee Sill, Dolly Parton, That Dog, YACHT, The Dillards, Joni Mitchell, King Tubby, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Buck 65, Moby Grape, Donovan, Why?, Finally Punk, The Mummies, Germs, Christmas Island, Fleetwood Mac, The Go-Gos, Barrington Levy, Girls, Ducktails, Black Tambourine, Beat Happening, Eero Johannes, Minor Threat, James Blake, E*Vax, The Feelies, Panda Bear, Tune-Yards, Bikini Kill, Morrissey, The Lemonheads, The Frumpies, The Shaggs, The Kinks, Phantom Planet, Mazes, The PeeChees, The Queers, Childish Gambino, The Bats, Rustie, The Tyde, Huggy Bear, Shop Assistants, Arthur Russell, Ben Lee, Bob Dylan, U.S Girls, Alex Bleeker, They Might Be Giants, Liz Phair, The Aislers Set, Fungi Girls etc. etc.
oh wow he likes Don Lennon!
what's your fav Don Lennon tunes, juicegermer?
It's hard to pick favourites as I don't think he's ever recorded a single bad song. The guy is a genius as far as I'm concerned. If I were to go for one it'd be 'Songs' off the last album. I can't believe he's not more well known. It makes no sense to me. He's like a more interesting Jens Lekman!
is the last album Nick & Mary? i still haven't heard that one as it's about £20 to get it sent over from the states. maybe when my bursary comes in i will get a load of his stuff shipped here.
kinda get the feeling Jens Lekman ripped off the lyrical style a bit, or at least they are both singing from the same influences. he's just the best, i was so shocked last year when i got into him and realised even the indiepop trainspotters don't really know him that well. manages to be clever / funny / heartbreaking consistently
Yeah, Nick & Mary is the last one and I'd argue it's his best. They're all great though. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough but you're the first person I've come across who even knows who he is. It's baffling to me. I played a gig with him in New York a few years ago and it was one of the best nights of my life. It was so exciting to see him, knowing that it'd probably be the only chance I'd ever get!
i only found out about him from poosie who used to post on here.
really wish he would come over here sometime but he's probably not well known enough. could easily see him going down a storm at the London Popfest or in the church at Indietracks or Fortuna Pop Winter Sprinter
here are some 10/10 Don Lennon songs for anyone earwigging
Matthews Comes Alive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGlVvfokSz8
Northampton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faPhyxMDH2s
Gay Fun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xz7ioLPRVk
Dance Music (live)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiDGdBYj5ng
this is a good diverting mini-thread
never heard of this guy, enjoying it
precious indie scenesters should drive'n'snark at me more often huh
This is really good.
I love gay fun...
My biggest problem with the most recent oM stuff
is that it just feel a lot less emotionally accessible than their Sunlandic Twins/Hissing Fauna/Skeletal Lamping peak... clearly a lot of that stuff came from the heart, where as Paralytic Stalks and EP before that feel like they very much come from the head...
no way! Paralytic Stalks is so so sad. was convinced when it came out that we were about 3 months away from the inevitable KB suicide
Yeah, it totally is
but at the same time it just doesn't feel like an outpouring of emotion in the same way, I don't know that writing about your unhappiness makes it intrinsically emotional music...
I didn't think that.
But this thread made me do a big binge, and I listed to Paralyic stalks on my commute and it felt so raw..
haven't written a good song since Fun Loving Nun
reminds me of when i used to post on the elephant 6 townhall and it was full of people whinging about how of Montreal SOLD OUT when they introduced drum machines into their music (i.e. post Cherry Peel)
this reminds me that I've still not listened to their last album
it's also led me to find out they released a compilation of rarities last year from 2007-onwards - my favourite period of the band! yay!
do you like Don Lennon, guntrip? have a listen to those songs a few posts up. i think he is right up your street
i will do, thanks!
Cherry Peel is the best thing I've heard from them.
Fucking love that album.
Didn't even realise that there was an album released last year.
Thankyou.
irritate the piss outta me, sorry. I did try though.
sunlandic twins is ace. good fun
but after that it's just whanky crap
They were my favourite band for ages.
I think Hissing fauna is a perfect album, but I have to agree with the OP that part of the love for them is how shockingly crap they can be.
i agree. great, great band
they just keep getting better...
Concur with the general thrust of this thread, without having really thought of it in those terms.
Listening to Paralytic Stalks now, pretty bangin', plenty of depth too. I feel like they've headed off-road after Hissing Fauna, in a way that I wasn't entirely sure about at first, but now am totally behind.
naturally I love 'Hissing Fauna...'
either side of that, I don't know what to think.
Hissing Fauna is likely flawless.
I cannot stand most everything else, though, other than the odd track here and there. There was some good stuff on Skeletal Lamping, but not much of it. Everything since Hissing Fauna has been mostly unlistenable to me.
I've gone back and listened to a few records, and that was the one record I really clicked with. I feel like Kevin Barnes has just gone off the crazy-ass deep end.
GREAT live, though. I've only seen them once, with HEALTH(!) opening, and it was one of the most fun shows I've ever been to - even if I didn't get to hear The Past Is A Grotesque Animal.
I saw them play field day in 08.
They played the past is a grotesque animal, and Barnes sliced his hand open on his guitar, so he smashed it. Incredible.