of Montreal: “We never really wanted to sound contemporary”

Prolific affiliates of their home city of Athens, Georgia’s collaborative Elephant Six co-operative, gaudy pop magpies of Montreal have now been putting out unruly, euphoric pop streaked with elements of glam, funk, disco and psychedelia for the best part of two decades. Led by the flamboyant, falsetto-employing frontman Kevin Barnes, last year’s Lousy with Sylvianbriar album was the band’s ninth since the turn of the century, and also a release that softened the edges of their trademark riotous glitter-ball stomp.

Barnes himself has called the album “pretty different” from its 2012 predecessor Paralytic Stalks, and it undoubtedly does feel like a significant departure from of Montreal’s established sound. They may have included a track entitled ‘The Past Is a Grotesque Animal’ on 2007’s acclaimed Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, but this is an album that unashamedly looks back to the classic rock of yesteryear for inspiration, as Lousy… marries Barnes’ trademark surreal lyrics to a gentler, folk-tinged backing. “Amphibian Days” is a drawn-out country ballad worthy of Neil Young and both “Belle Glade Missionaries” and “Hegira Émigré” recall Bringing It All Back Home/Highway 61 Revisited-era Dylan. A 60s baroque pop vein also runs through “Sirens of Your Toxic Spirit.”

The album came into being via a rudimentary 24-track home recording device, with Barnes exiling himself in San Francisco to write the songs before reconvening with the band in Athens to commit them to record. In the liner notes to the 2013 reissue of lo-fi classic All Hail West Texas, another indie-rock stalwart – The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle – extols the virtues of utilizing basic home recording techniques to capture a ‘painfully raw’ sound. He claims that “while there is seldom much to say about the deliberately primitive nature of the recordings we make, the results were uncannily accurate representations’ of The Mountain Goats’ music at the time”. Did Barnes similarly find it liberating to forsake more high-tech recording methods in making Lousy with Sylvianbriar?

“I wouldn’t say it was necessarily liberating, but it did present a challenge that I found very inspiring and motivating. It was cool to have to actually play and sing well, and not be able to fall back on the help of computer software. Recording in analog also forces one to make a lot of creative decisions on the fly and, as a result, I feel like the performances sound more impulsive and less contrived.’

Another track from the album, “Obsidian Currents”, deals in Bowie-like existential rumination and contains the revealing line – “You have committed yourself wholly to the dominion of semantics and ideas.” Is this track aimed at someone who seeks moral refuge in the doctrines of organised religion? Of a political ideology? Both? Barnes replies, explaining that “it is basically about people who live in a state of detachment, people who intellectualize everything and lose touch with raw human emotions. It’s sort of a warning against that kind of existence. It’s just as much directed towards myself as anybody else.”

As an established band with long-running ties to local contemporaries, do Of Montreal still feel a connection to the city of Athens and its contemporary music scene? Is the collaborative Elephant 6 Recording Company (an assemblage of Athens’ like-minded cult experimental indie acts centred including bands such as Neutral Milk Hotel, The Apples in Stereo, Beulah and the Olivia Tremor Control) movement still significant to you? “At this point, I don’t feel all that connected to any scene or movement. Of Montreal is basically an art collective within itself, because there are so many people contributing different things in all kinds of mediums. I do treasure my memories of the old E6 days though; they were very significant in my development as an artist.”

Remarkably, Of Montreal will celebrate their 20 year anniversary in 2016. How much has the music industry changed much in this period? How different is the recording/touring/promotional process today as compared to when you started out? “Things are very different now,” Barnes replies. “We sort of languished in obscurity for so many years early on, and I don’t think that would happen nowadays, just because it’s so much easier to make people aware of your existence. When we first started out, we made the conscious decision to shun modern recording techniques in favour of following the methods used by our heroes from the 60′s and 70s, so I can’t really speak to any change in contemporary recording methods. We never really wanted to sound contemporary anyway. I do think, with the advent of powerful laptops and software, that it’s way easier to make good sounding music without much of a financial investment. I think that’s great for music in a way, as long as people don’t let their computers do all of the work!”

We may only be in mid February, but 2014’s summer festival line ups are starting to be unveiled, with of Montreal due to appear at the Sasquatch Fourth of July Weekend in Seattle and Austin’s Psych Fest. How do festivals compare to Of Montreal’s own shows? Are they inevitably a diluted version of a vision or experience?

“I guess it depends on the scenario. A lot of the time, festivals just toss bands on stage one after the other and no-one gets much time to prepare their visual/theatrical productions. We try to be malleable, and work within the time constraints. Coming to Europe is so expensive that it’s tricky to bring the full production over here as well. Sometimes we have to slim things down a bit just because our budget is so limited. It’s not as much of an issue when we play in the States.”

Lousy With Sylvanbriar is out now on Polyvinyl. The band tour the UK this week, playing Glasgow’s Art School tomorrow, 18 February (tickets here), Manchester’s Gorilla Wednesday 19 (tickets here) and London’s Oval Space on Thursday, 20 February (tickets here).