of Montreal

About

of Montreal are an Athens, Georgia band built around the restless creativity of frontperson Kevin Barnes, who named the group after a failed romance with a woman from Montreal. Part of the beloved Elephant 6 collective, they started out in dreamy 1960s influenced indie pop territory before Barnes pushed the sound into increasingly strange and ambitious places, pulling in neo psychedelia, funk, glam rock, synth pop and experimental electronics along the way. The band's catalog is vast and genuinely varied. Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? from 2007 is widely considered a high point, recorded largely while Barnes was living in Norway. Skeletal Lamping followed in 2008, released in ten different formats including T shirts and paper lanterns. False Priest was tracked at Ocean Way Recording with producer Jon Brion. Their songs have turned up in commercials for Outback Steakhouse, NASDAQ and T Mobile, which at least confirms how infectious their hooks can be even when stripped of context.