Playlouder - Music is the Network

www.ofmontreal.net www.myspace.com/ofmontreal

www.polyvinylrecords.com

Kevin Barnes, from Athens Georgia’s technicolour indie pop band of Montreal, has unveiled details of the ‘Skeletal Lamping’ Collection, comprising of several innovative new album formats. In keeping with the notion of fluid identity explored in ‘Skeletal Lamping’, of Montreal’s latest and greatest musical odyssey will be available to buy in UK stores from 3rd November as a Chinese lantern (pictured), badges, wall decorations, bespoke tote bags or t-shirts combined with a download of the album, as well as in more traditional formats such as vinyl and cd.

Over to Kevin Barnes, of Montreal’s wonderfully engaging frontman on why they have decided to bring the Skeletal Lamping Collection to life:

"We Will Only Propagate Exceptional Objects"

“There are many scientists who believe, that it takes months for a new born child to establish a sense of individuality. The new born doesn't make a distinction between themselves and their mother. It takes some time before a child understands that their mother is a separate entity. Upon making this discovery, initially, we are filled with a great anxiety. Of course, over time, we develop a real appreciation for our individuality, and all that it awards us. From the moment of our first "self" discovery, until our death, we develop, discard and rebuild our sense of identity countless times. We all do this, even boring people. Once we've established a comfortable self-sense of our current identity, we want to parade it. We want to campaign for it. We want the whole world to know, "look look, this is me, how you like me now?". To project our self identity into the outer and, to amplify the howl of our self expression, we have many tools at our disposal; our art, our clothing and hair style, the way we talk..., and, for a lot of us, the objects that populate our living spaces.  There are myriad vendors, attempting to contribute to our identity campaigns, creating rather dull and uninspiring products. Making the production of any new objects, at this point, almost seem criminal. In reaction to this, we unveil, the Skeletal Lamping Collection 08.

“of Montreal has, from the beginning, taken great pains to always put a lot of thought and care into the art packaging for our records. We've always felt that the packaging was just as important as the music inside of it. We've worked within the constraints of conventional album packaging, and have tried to create something fantastically uncommon every time. Now, we find ourselves in the middle of an exciting epoch: A time, when new technology has shattered the conventional business model and has set a paradigm shift in motion. For some people in the music biz, this is terrifying. For us, it is a fucking miracle! While the kings are in a stupor, we are going to take full advantage of the changing guard. 

“The concept behind the Skeletal Lamping Collection is this: ideally, every object that you bring into your home, should feel exceptional to you. Otherwise, it just adds to the clutter and chaos of your life.  We feel that there's no reason to produce another object that just sits on a shelf. We only want to produce objects that have a function and that can be treasured for their singularness. Objects that can transform a room, bend the mind and inform your dreams. A CD has little value, as an object, and the conventional, right angle plagued CD packaging, we've been forced to endure forever, has nothing new to offer us either. That is why, instead of following the tired path of the past, we've decided, to release a table top floral beast, a lantern, a collection of wall decals, a stallion shaped print, a collection of pins, and a clothing and tote bag line as our album packaging instead. All art objects in the Skeletal Lamping Collection were designed by the Apollinaire Rave collective artists: Gemini Tactics and The Bee With Wheels. 

“One of the most exciting aspects of our escape from the trappings of conventional album packaging is that, upon buying Skeletal Lamping, a person is given the option to choose from a number of different items in the Skeletal Lamping Collection. Digital downloading of albums has brought upon an unfortunate situation, wherein, with your purchase, you only receive, at best, a thumbnail sized image of the album's cover art, to look at on your mp3 player or computer. In our minds, this is unacceptable. We feel a person should not be punished for opting to purchase a record digitally, nor should one have to choose between, either, fantastic art object or ease of purchase. 

“We hope this idea catches on and, in the future, square CD packaging will be abandoned forever and only interesting art objects will fill record stores. We envision a time when you'll be walking around your local record shop and be like, "What's the new Radiohead album again? Oh yeah, a bonsai tree in the shape of a deformed goat, I see it over there."