Of Montreal have a new album on the way. Aethermead, the follow-up to 2024’s Lady on the Cusp, arrives June 5 via Polyvinyl. Watch David Barnes’ visualizer for new song “When” below.
In a press release, Barnes said he made the album after a breakup and a move from Vermont to Brooklyn, where he recorded Aethermead with engineer Drew Vandenberg and Of Montreal live members Clayton Rychlik, Jojo Glidwell, and Ross Brand. “I’ve always had a romantic fascination with New York, but for forever I couldn’t figure out how to make it work,” Barnes said. “The timing was perfect this time around.”
Of the single, they added, “‘When’ is more a song about yearning, sadness, confusion, frustration… than it is a song about having sex. Clearly all of the things listed in the verses are the things I actually desire. I’m hiding behind a shield of sexual bravado and pretending as if my only needs are physical. It’s very transparent that I’m longing for much more than just libidinal fulfilment, but those other things are being withheld. It’s much easier to say ‘When can I fuck you again?’ than it is to say ‘When will you be loving, affectionate, and emotionally generous and make me feel whole again?’”
Last month, Kevin Barnes and co. announced a sprawling North American tour that will keep them on the road for most of the summer. They reissued 2005’s The Sunlandic Twins for its 20th anniversary last year.
