Physics Makes Us All Its Bitches.

It's thrilling. It's somewhat mad. It's the new Of Montreal album, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?


And my introduction to it is all down to Dave, of course. He mentioned it on Wednesday night at the Andrew Bird gig [which was EXCELLENT, by the way. Everything. All of it. But particularly his song about the Scythian Empire. The Scythians apparently ruled the Russian steppe from 600-300BC, and he thought they deserved a song. Also, he covered Bob Dylan's Oh, Sister, which made me glad. I love that song, and it has always puzzled me that it doesn't get trotted out by more people. I found it especially confounding that The White Stripes covered One More Cup Of Coffee, when the very next song on the Desire album is so apt to their early sister/wife business. Anyway, Andrew Bird = A Great Thing. AND he'll be supporting Joanna Newsom on Tuesday night, so, that's shaping up as the Best Gig of 2007, and January's not even over yet.]

So yes, Of Montreal. It's all good, but my current favourite song on the album is Gronlandic Edit. There's a lot to like in this song, but at the same time there's definitely One Thing that fights its way out of the mess of goodness to achieve particular acclaim, and that One Thing is this: in the delivery of the line "and for-GET, all of the beauty's wasted", there is an interval of a 9TH between the "for" and the "-GET". A whole 9th! (I think it's a 9th anyway. When I matched the notes to my piano, there was one more than an octave between them, which I presume is called a 9th. However, my piano is not exactly in the best condition.) Anyway, that bit packs quite the awesome. Listen out for it.

And really, "a mess of goodness" is how I'd describe Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? Note: there are no derogatory connotations to "a mess of goodness". I just mean to say that there are so many things to enjoy in it, and they just keep piling up on top of one another. For instance, there are lyrics like the above-mentioned "Physics makes us all its bitches", or "I spent the winter with my nose buried in a book while trying to restructure my character", or "There's the girl that left me bitter/ Want to pay some other girl to just walk up to her and and hit her". There is digitised falsetto harmonising, there is "o-o-o-o-o-o". Excellent, yes? It's not my intention to make it sound like Laurie Anderson meets the Bee Gees (but, how awesome would that be?). Actually, I didn't want to describe it as something that has obvious reference points at all. Because, above anything else, Of Montreal has struck me as something highly original. I LIKE.