Kevin Barnes (he/she/they) did not believe they could ever leave Georgia. Arriving in the erstwhile college-rock hub of Athens around 1996, Barnes, who will answer to any pronoun you proffer, bent gender and genre through complicated and ever-delightful records, trouble and woe fueling kinetic tunes of radical incandescence. Gracing countless stages, tv screens, dancefloors and stereos as well as making a political impact in their local community and beyond for nearly three decades, of Montreal has announced the brand new studio album Lady On The Cusp due out May 17 on Polyvinyl Record Co. The new collection is not only a rapturous synthesis of most everything of Montreal has ever done but also Barnes’ final transmission from Athens, as they’re now a fresh Southern expatriate delighted to be living among the snowy peaks and progressive politics of southern Vermont.
Written and recorded in the months when Barnes and partner, musician Christina Schneider, prepared them to move, Lady On The Cusp combines a keen reckoning with the past with hopeful glimpses of the future, all clad in Barnes’ purposefully scattershot pop kaleidoscopes. The new 10 song suite—funny and sad, sexy and brooding, playful and serious—find Barnes finding new paths ahead. All of this perfectly coils together for the infectious lead single “Yung Hearts Bleed Free” released today alongside an official video. The Bootsy Collins-influenced, self-deprecating ode to Barnes’ heroes—”sex maniacs” and “drug-addled creeps,”—indulges in freedom and fetish. It is candid, too, about the doubts and shortcomings of any life lived fully.
Barnes explains that the song was, “Influenced by the Leos Carax film “Boy Meets Girl”, Bootsy’s Rubber Band, and my recent purchase of a Yamaha TG33 and a Kawai K1M. I wanted to make a strutting, sexy little vamp of a song that just kind of chugged along and felt relaxed and playful and free.”
Director Madeline Babuka Black shares, “There’s a certain 60’s/ experimental spirit to Barnes’ songwriting that I love and by using analog techniques of paper cut out and direct on film animation I pay homage to that. The paper cut out animations and color palette of the film were deeply inspired by Larry Jordan’s experimental animations, most notably his 1968 film “Our Lady of the Sphere.”
