Video: of Montreal – “Get God’s Attention By Being An Atheist”

Directed by Christina Schneider. From UR FUN, out now on Polyvinyl.

It’s fun when Kevin Barnes turns up the guitars. For the past couple of decades he has gone back and forth between making disco beats in his bedroom, and getting down with a full band. Sounds like of Montreal is a badass glam rock band now. Which is awesome.

Barnes told Songfacts, “It’s a cheeky song playing with these different ideas of whether or not you can have blind faith or whether you need to antagonize God into believing in you. We’re always worried about us believing in God, but it’s more important that God believes in you. So it’s playing off that idea, and also with the carpe diem chants in the choruses it’s about not being afraid of life: not letting society or conventionality prevent you from exploring your psyche, exploring your sexuality, exploring all levels of your human experience.”

We don’t wanna be safe, we want experience, we want it louder
It’s crushing our ears, we don’t give a fuck, we want it louder
Loud enough to destroy the talismans of our depressions
We don’t wanna be safe, we want experience, we want it louder

Turn it up!

Of Montreal: web, twitter, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.

Video: of Montreal – “Plateau Phase/No Careerism No Corruption”

Directed by Christina Eleni Schneider. From White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood, out now on Polyvinyl.

Sometimes I worry about Kevin Barnes. I realize it’s not right to try to read too much into the personal life of an artist based on their creative work, but yowza. I hope he’s well. And maybe he is. Perhaps he just thinks serious mental disorders make an interesting lyrical subject matter for disco jams. And maybe he’s right. What do I know?

Barnes explained the origins of this song:

Plateau Phase/No Careerism No Corruption started out as a song I wrote for Janelle Monáe last summer called Fucked In Your Driveway. We worked on it together one magical day in her laboratory at Wondaland but nothing really happened with it, so I reworked it into something very different for my own album. Lyrically I pulled inspiration from Multiverse Theory, the writings of Wilhelm Reich and the economist Guy Standing, Eastern European party culture, and Bluets by Maggie Nelson, as well as my burgeoning new love affair with a woman of mystery and magic. We shot the video in Atlanta at an art/performance space called RowdyDowdy one chilly winter day this January.

I’d love to hear the Janelle Monae version! Maybe some day. In the meantime you can catch Of Montreal on tour this spring.

Of Montreal: web, twitter, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.

Video: of Montreal – “Paranoiac Intervals/Body Dysmorphia”

From White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood, out March 9 on Polyvinyl.

Good old Kevin Barnes, prancing around in his grandma’s clothes, singing to his love: “You’re the only one who’s worthy of my concentration.”

Barnes said it’s “a song about panic, fear, insecurity, misanthropy, self-loathing, vanity, lustfulness, arrogance and um…loving compassion. It is an anthem for the post-Obama era, an age where spurious hope has been replaced with a hatewave of pharmaceutically diminished internet neo-realism.”

Which, of course, is a perfect subject for a disco song. Why not?

of Montreal: web, twitter, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.