If there’s one thing to be said about Kevin Barnes, it’s that he has never been afraid to do exactly what he wants with his music and his art. Whether it’s the perpetual shifting of genres between albums (much less the tweaking of styles between and during songs) or occasionally performing naked, Barnes and company consistently find new and fresh ways to both present and reinvent Of Montreal for their listening and viewing audience.

Thus, while I personally feel that Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? is Barnes’ magnum opus, what strikes me first and perpetually throughout the whole of Skeletal Lamping is that, regardless of how overtly hyper-kinetic and schizophrenic the style palette appears to be, it is fundamentally a pop album full of love songs. Yes, even though this album’s lyrics up the ante on sexual weirdness to levels that would make Alfred Kinsey proud, everything still revolves around how a young couple expresses their thoughts, feelings, and desires to one other.

photo by Patrick Heagney

In terms of the actual music, there’s a reason that “Id Engager” and “Nonpareil of Favor” are the two tracks that serve as the lead singles – both evince the funky, noisy, Panda-Bear-meets-Prince brilliance that drives the entire project and do so without giving away the record’s full spectrum of textures, tones, and flavors.

While Skeletal Lamping, with its multitudes of sonic shifts, twists, turns, and tumbles (not to mention the near-comical displays of perverse sexuality) might not win Of Montreal any new fans, it does certify that Kevin Barnes has truly entered into his own as a pop auteur.

Of Montreal “Nonpareil of Favor” (mp3)
Of Montreal “Id Engager” (mp3)

(Official) (MySpace) (Wikipedia)

(Guest contributor Adam P. Newton also writes at Dryvetyme Onlyne)

Also: (“Id Engager” Video) (Muja Messiah & Of Montreal Cover M.I.A.) (Of Montreal on Spinner’s The Interface) (Of Montreal on Late Night with Conan O’Brien)