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When creators fImajica, Andrei Tarkovsky's sci-fi classic Solaris, and Godard's Alphaville. But what happens to artists when the flow of time gets f^cked up IRL? When an hour stretches into eternity, and the voices in your head begin to echo through empty rooms?

If youre Kevin Barnes, the creative visionary behind of Montreal, Freewave Lucifer fck happens.

Isolation and uncertainty loomed throughout the genesis of the bands latest studio album. The experience of just trying to keep my head above water and navigate through the last couple years played a huge role in this record, says Barnes.

These expansive selections contrast markedly with the focused pop of 2020s UR FUN, which was crafted for visceral thrills and the concert stage. As it was for countless musicians around the world, the inability to tour eliminated one of the linchpins of Barnes creative process. I didnt know if wed ever tour again, so I didnt consider that side of things. Denied social interaction and diverse experiences, Barnes delved inward.

Barnes contemplated how time functions in music and experimented accordingly. These new songs, dense with ideas but short on repetition, feel epic in scope despite reasonable running times. Like the staircases of M.C. Eschers Relativity, the discrete sections of Marijuanas A Working Woman and Blab Sabbath Lathe of Maiden crisscross and pivot, confounding the senses yet commanding attention.

The imagery and sentiments that bubble forth from Barnes lyrical wordplay prove equally disorienting. Is it important to say black chrome rodents?, asks Barnes on Aprs The Dclass. Phrases borne of free association took on new meaning when introduced into a song. Its like collaborating with my subconscious in a way. It feels deeply personal, even though I dont necessarily understand it at that moment.

Marijuanas A Working Woman'' juxtaposes oddball funk a la Zapp or Rick James with nods to Alice Anne Bailys 19th century spiritualism. Modern Art Bewilders zigzags between baroque psychedelic idyll and synthpop tantrum, equal parts Sgt. Peppers and Gary Numan. Other influences woven throughout include realist painter Edward Hopper, fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin, cinaste Pedro Almodovar, and erotic illustrator Toshio Saeki.

Barnes likens their compositional process to making collages from seemingly unrelated source materials, combining them in provocative ways to reveal new meanings. I wasnt working with specific themes that I wanted to try and stretch over a three-minute pop song. It was sewing together a lot of fragmented thoughts, which ties in nicely to the freewave aspect of the album titles meaning. As Barnes explains, Freewave is my term for wild and intractable artistic expression. Lucifer is the angel of enlightenment and elucidation. Fuck is something we say when things are going really well, or really badly.

As for anything else going on behind the scenes during the genesis of Freewave Lucifer fck, Barnes opts to preserve the mystery. Sometimes in the past, I felt it was important for people to know certain things, so they could get into a specific headspace. Not this time. The last couple of years laid a heavy trip on everybodys psyche. There are plenty of universal things here to identify with.

All songs written, performed, produced and mixed by Kevin Barnes at Sunlandic Studios July-December 2021

Mastered by Mike Nolte

Art by David Barnes (The Bee With Wheels)

Design by Christina Schneider