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Mar 05, 2024 By Mark Redfern Photography by Shervin Lainez

Of Montreal, the project of Kevin Barnes, has announced a new album, Lady on the Cusp, and shared its first single, “Yung Hearts Bleed Free,” via a music video. Of Montreal has also announced some new tour dates. Lady on the Cusp will be out on May 17 via Polyvinyl. View the video below, along with the album’s cover art and tracklist, followed by the tour dates.

Lady on the Cusp is the follow-up to 2022’s Freewave Lucifer f<ck f^ck f>ck and 2020’s UR FUN. A press release says Barnes “will answer to any pronoun you proffer,” including he, she, and they. A fixture of the Athens, Georgia music scene since 1996, Barnes and his partner, musician Christina Schneider (aka Locate S, 1), recently left the South for the more progressive state of Vermont. The move informed the new album, as it was written and recorded as they were making preparations to relocate, with Barnes reflecting on his nearly three decades of making music in Athens.

Of “Yung Hearts Bleed Free,” Barnes had this to say in a press release: “Influenced by the Leos Carax film Boy Meets Girl, Bootsy’s Rubber Band, and my recent purchase of a Yamaha TG33 and a Kawai K1M. I wanted to make a strutting, sexy little vamp of a song that just kind of chugged along and felt relaxed and playful and free.”

Madeline Babuka Black directed the song’s music video and had this to add: “There’s a certain ’60s/experimental spirit to Barnes’ songwriting that I love and by using analog techniques of paper cut out and direct on film animation I pay homage to that. The paper cut out animations and color palette of the film were deeply inspired by Larry Jordan’s experimental animations, most notably his 1968 film Our Lady of the Sphere.”

Read our 2016 The End interview about endings and death with of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes.

Lady on the Cusp Tracklist:

1. Music Hurts the Head
2. 2 Depressed 2 Fuck
3. Rude Girl on Rotation
4. Yung Hearts Bleed Free
5. Soporific Cell
6. I Can Read Smoke
7. PI$$ PI$$
8. Sea Mines That Mr Gone
9. Poetry Surf
10. Genius in the Wind

of Montreal 2024 Tour Dates: