Of Montreal
Since capturing pole position as indie rock’s favorite fearless freaks (waving to the Flaming Lips in the rearview), Of Montreal has set about upscaling its wild live shows to fill ever-growing venue sizes with tons of costume changes, props, balloons, and confetti. Their newest effort, "False Priest," has frontman Kevin Barnes favoring organic instruments over keyboards—but his interest in marrying indie-pop to heavy grooves remains. “Priest” is the kind of album Phoenix wish they could make. Opener Janelle Monae is the type of artist who comes around once a generation—she breathlessly combines doo-wop, psychedelic, R&B and high-minded arranging on her debut album "ArchAndroid." (All with the original style of a Visionaire cover subject). Watch out for Monae on every year-end list come December.
