Review Summary: Kevin Barnes’ Paranoiac Sexcapade
Schizophrenic government conspiracies and unapologetically sleazy sex ballads fill the pages of Kevin Barnes’ tattered notebooks. The accompanying soundtrack to Barnes’ paranoiac sexcapades is a dark progressive pop sound that pulsates with cold, mechanical rhythm and the abandonment of anything resembling rational human thought.
White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood is a drastic departure for the Of Montreal project despite Kevin Barnes’ long established reputation for unorthodox pop musings. The psychedelic renovation that underscored Of Montreal’s extensive backlog of records have been swapped out for extended passages of sublime, experimental dabbling. Only 6 tracks narrate the absent minded ramblings of Barnes’ descent into the nocturnal haze of his newspaper lined nightclub. And each one pushed or surpasses the 8 minute mark and incorporates songwriting styling from the disco epics of yesteryear into a plethora of nauseating genre mishmashes that only an Of Montreal project could pull off.
White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood is as complex as it is catchy with a consistent two-part song structure allowing Barnes’ to spread himself far with simple but effective pop hooks such as the multi-layered flat beat synths of “Paranoiac Intervals”, to the more instrumentally busy structuring in the longer cuts such as “Sophie Calle Private Game” and “If You Talk to Symbol”. Every second of this record bleeds life and creativity. Finding news ways to entertain and carry the ear with the dark, the sensual, and the hypnotizing through its perfected atmosphere. Album opener “Soft Music” pulsates with a bouncy bassline that sounds as though it is getting physically carried along each 808 beat, cowbell klang, pitch-shifted piano key, and sound effect that seeps through the lazily-spoken vocal lead before falling off into a sea of accordions, flutes, and Barnes’ droning repetition of “entering purgatory”. From there, the insanity festers as “Writing the Circle’s” thick bassline and pitched vocals reflect a man slipping further into the void before all hope is laid to rest through an explosion of saxophones and a hollow, deep synth lead.
The final two tracks of the record “Sophie Calle Private Game” and “If You Talk to Symbol” are undoubtedly the most impressive achievements. Barnes’ uncanny ability to balance a countless number of ideas and styles are in full display and at their best with this track. From the bubbly, stuttering horns and the soft bass slaps in the introduction and choruses of “Sophie Calle”, to the dramatic, ghostly synths and Barnes’ over the top “woe is me” performance on “If You Talk”, these two tracks don’t shy away from introducing new ideas to create instrumentally dense and massively alluring compositions. The latter track takes things further with a fast-flowing spoken word passage and frantic guitar picking that bleeds into a sparse saxophone-heavy outro. The only misfire to this record’s name rests with “Plateau Phase/No Careerism No Corruption”, which stumbles through a clumsily arranged chorus that balances hi-hat fills on top of a misplaced, sedated vocal performance that while far from bad, is out of place with the rest of the record.
Exhaustively complex and instrumentally rich,
White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood is undoubtedly the best project to come from Of Montreal since
Hissing Fauna. With very few missteps to name and every new idea this record throws at the listener landing perfectly, this is an album that offers a vast amount of appeal for how much detail gets discovered with each subsequent relisten. If recent Of Montreal records have scared you away from the wacky world of Kevin Barnes’, then let this record be the one that brings you back in.
