February 14, 2007
Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
There’s a wrongheaded notion that an artist must suffer for art. Nevertheless, suffering can provide seeds inspiration—or it can paralyze.
In the case of Kevin Barnes, the force behind of Montreal, he is compelled to create in spite of his suffering. You see, Barnes has had some pretty bad times since the last album, The Sunlandic Twins from 2005. Barnes struggled with depression and a temporary separation from his wife and newborn child and even considered himself to be suicidal.
In the astronomically catchy “Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse,” Barnes is upfront about his situation: “I’m in a crisis / I need help / Come on mood shift, shift back to good again.” Then, referring to the imbalance of natural chemicals (not illicit chemicals, as Barnes has clarified in interviews—drugs are bad, mmkay) in his brain that’s wreaking havoc on his emotions, Barnes sings, “Chemicals, don’t strangle my pen!” He wants the suffering to go away, but in the very least, he beckons, don’t let it stifle his creativity.
Barnes doesn’t want to relive Brian Wilson’s lost years in the early 70s, as a bed-ridden basket case. Coincidentally, Barnes has been moving away from his apparent Beach Boys influences toward a glossy, new wave sound. A more apt point of comparison now is early-to-mid 80s Prince, in one-man band mode, and Hissing Fauna, like the last few Of Montreal albums, was largely produced by Barnes alone.
In the middle of the album is the menacing 12-minute track “The Past is a Grotesque Animal,” where Barnes undergoes a metamorphosis from lost soul to soul brother: his black gender-bending alter ego, Georgie Fruit. Barnes, uhm I mean Georgie, goes for all-out funkitude on “Faberge Falls for Shuggie,” which wouldn’t sound out of place on a Beck album, with endearingly silly falsetto vocals and a slithering, electric groove.
The talent Barnes has for creating pop hooks is pretty amazing, as he manages to pull off at least several infectious ones per song on the remarkably strong album.
Apart from the Georgie Fruit moments, his electro-pop falls somewhere between ABBA and the Human League but with a more contemporary sheen, accented with his double-tracked, boldly fey vocals. It’s much in the vein of the peppy first two-thirds of The Sunlandic Twins, mostly avoiding the murky sound-opera dramatics of its last third. If it’s drama you crave, well, that’s in the lyrics.
(Ba Da Bing!)
“Lon Gisland” isn’t the name of some European silent film actor—it’s “Long Island” with a misplaced “g.” Now, Zach Condon, the singer and songwriter behind Beirut, himself seems to be misplaced, being an American (from Santa Fe, to be exact) obsessed with Balkan folk music.
Like that “g” gone astray, he transforms something American (in this case, his pop music) into something that sounds European. As long as authenticity isn’t an issue—and it really shouldn’t be—one will find that he appropriates rather well. The old world ending of “Oh Comely” by Neutral Milk Hotel is one reference point for his method, but Condon takes it further, with gypsy percussion and a wide variety of instrumentation.
Condon sounds a bit like Jens Lekman, though with a slight flutter in his voice, and like the Magnetic Fields (a band he admires), he has a soft spot for ukuleles.
This EP follows Beirut’s debut album, last year’s wonderful Gulag Orkestar, with the same approaches taken on that release. “Elephant Gun” begins with a familiar uke strum, gradually introducing brass, percussion, and more strings—it’s a good summary of the Beirut style, but the song itself isn’t as memorable as some on Gulag Orkestar.
Included is a re-working of “Scenic World,” replacing the synthetics (chimpy keyboard and artificial beats) with accordions and hand-struck drums; I’m partial to the contrasting sounds on the original, but this version works, too. There are two brief instrumentals, and “Carousels” ends the EP, propelled by oom-pah-pah piano chords and nearly constant snare drum taps in 6/8 time. I can’t allow you to buy this until you have Gulag Orkestar, but if you get the British import of that album, on 4AD Records, then Lon Gisland is included as a bonus disc.
Let’s Go! (EP)
While The Features have dominated most of the recent press about the Murfreesboro music scene over the last couple of years, How I Became the Bomb will likely grab most of the ink in 2007. There’s just something about a ravishing seven-song blend of Devo and The Cure served up in a calculatedly complicated cardboard sleeve complete with an excessively intricate booklet full of odd Masonic imagery that screams stardom.
Every song is catchy and restrained, without one more note or word than absolutely necessary. And for a band that sports a classically trained pianist, that’s quite an accomplishment. The bomb?
Yes. But drop the “I.” There’s no “I” in team.
And that’s what you are.
How I Became the Bomb is playing with Forest Magik at J.J.
’s Bohemia on Saturday night.
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