Kevin Barnes, the freakish creative genius behind the wild hybrid of art-pop/funk/disco that is of Montreal has recently spoken about the band’s next album, entitled False Priest – the much anticipated follow up to their 2008 release Skeletal Lamping. Engineered by Jon Brion (whose produced tracks for artists ranging from Evan Dando to Spoon to Kanye West) and featuring cameos from soul R&B ladies Solange Knowles and Janelle Monae False Priest due for release in October, sounds ten kinds of awesome.
In a recent interview with Pitchfork, Barnes said the new album has “a thick R&B influence, so it’s cool that we have a lot of deep low end [bass]… We’re trying to make a record that has similar low end to records like The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest and even, to some degree, stuff like Dr. Dre.”
Since 2007 Kevin Barnes has been performing as his alter ego, Georgie Fruit, an African American glam-funk transsexual from the Seventies, so the dude is no stranger to harnessing the power of funk and classic R&B into the music of of Montreal, so recruiting Janelle Monáe and Solange to sing on False Priest is a natural marriage. He spoke about working with the two girls saying: “they’re my good friends, so we just have fun together. I wrote a song on Janelle’s record, and we sang it together… And Solange is fantastic. Her son and my daughter are best buddies, and I think we’re going to have an arranged marriage for the two of them.”
Cannot wait to hear this album. Last time of Montreal toured Australia Mr Barnes emerged from the wings onto the stage, resplendent in draped Eastern fabrics, jesus sandals and a full face of makeup. “I am a hippie god,” said he before blowing the audience’s collective minds with the most outrageous sensory experience I’ve maybe ever seen. Fingers crossed an Australian tour is on the cards…
