by LORRAINE CARPENTER

One of Canada's worst kept secrets is our collective craving for American attention. As much as we may disapprove of their corrupt politicians and trashy pop icons, do we not get a little giddy when their mass media spotlight shines on us? Remember the glory days of SARS, when "Toronto" fell from the lips of their news anchors night after night? Well, Athens, Georgia's Kevin Barnes didn't need a minor epidemic to make Montreal part of his vocabulary, just a touch of cardiac damage.

"In the mid-'90s, I met this girl in Montreal and had a heartbreaking experience," he explains, "but it was also positive in a weird way. I felt like it was a pivotal moment in my life that would forever influence me. I wanted my band name to have some personal significance, so that's why I picked Of Montreal."

Of Montreal's seventh album, The Sunlandic Twins, is half catchy three-minute pop songs, heavily influenced by Brian Eno's work with David Bowie and Talking Heads, and half darker, moodier "electro pop opera." The disparity of sound is partly due to the fact that Barnes wrote roughly half the album for a Norwegian theatre piece called Glamour to Kill. Along with the instrumentals composed specifically for its soundtrack, the piece incorporated some of the record's pop numbers, surreally transformed on stage by a classically trained opera singer. Barnes describes Glamour to Kill as, "Really avant garde. It's supposed to be glamorous but campy but serious but fun but frightening."

Likewise, Of Montreal's current live show is far from the typical indie rock experience. The band has been known to sport multiple costumes, play multiple instruments and perform skits between songs, and this tour won't be lacking in theatricality.

"When we work out a set, we plan all the segues, so it feels like what we're taking on tour is a solid performance piece," says Barnes. As for the spectacle's unifying aesthetic, he calls it, "Sexualien. It's something original I created. It's sort of glammy, but not in the Rocky Horror Picture Show sense. It's somewhere between Ziggy Stardust and Ronald Reagan."

With the Management at la Sala Rossa
on Sun., Aug. 28, 9 p.m., $12

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