A compilation of unreleased songs and rarities culled from the past five years, Daughter of Cloud could be described as a record geared exclusively toward hardcore Of Montreal fans. Except every Of Montreal record lately seems geared toward a continually shrinking base of diehards. The Athens, Ga., band has sunk deeper into a rabbit hole of conceptually dense, erratic, and frankly exhausting music since the band's acknowledged peak, 2007's *Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?. *Even those of us who appreciated the sheer number of batshit ideas spilling out of 2008's comically overloaded Skeletal Lamping were finally tired out by 2010's mannered sex-funk extravaganza False Priest, and then bored by this year's turgid Paralytic Stalks. Now Of Montreal are getting lapped by young turks like Foxygen and Tame Impala, who navigate the cosmic space between classic rock, psychedelia, and dance music with a firmer grasp of songcraft and none of the tiresome masturbation, musical or otherwise.
A collection of leftovers and buried treasures from Of Montreal's recent period of artistic decline hardly seems enticing, and yet Daughter of Cloud is good enough to justify not completely writing them off just yet. Two of the best tracks-- the spacey country number "Feminine Effects" (graced with a beguiling lead vocal by Rebecca Cash) and the fractured dance-pop hip-swinger "Psychotic Feeling"-- were relegated to a Record Store Day release (in a slightly different version) and an obscure EP respectively. Which is a shame, because they demonstrate that Of Montreal's mastermind Kevin Barnes is still capable of sticking with a single musical idea per song and carrying it out extremely well.
The same goes for other standouts on Daughter of Cloud, including the fantastically poppy acid folk of "Micro University" and the beautifully icy "Noir Blues to Tinnitus", which moves along on a stunning robotic pulse that Barnes lets slowly unfold and breathe for more than five minutes, without forcefully cramming in three time-signature changes, screaming multi-track vocals, or violently vomiting strings. "Our Love Is Senile" is another keeper, with the core tools in Barnes' arsenal-- a disco bassline, snappy guitar lines, aloof dandy vocals-- plied with uncommon focus and restraint.
At its best, Daughter of Cloud is a reminder of how good Barnes can be when he imposes discipline on his outsized talent for producing groove-heavy, tuneful psych-rock songs. Unfortunately, Daughter also has plenty of examples of what happened to Of Montreal's music once Barnes grew bored with discipline, and decided to follow his muse blindly down whatever needlessly convoluted avenue it took him. Sizeable swaths of Daughter consist of tracks that simply do not cohere; "Steppin' Out" and "Partizan Terminus", like so many Of Montreal songs lately, are mini-suites composed of elements that could be developed into several other, better tracks if Barnes didn't just cram them together.
Like his hero Prince, Barnes is a gifted songwriter, musician, and performer capable of making any kind of music he wants, and he's been indulged by those around them to do just that. But, as much of Prince's recorded output illustrates, absolute freedom to pursue every creative whim no matter how misguided doesn't always (or even frequently) result in mind-blowingly brilliant music. Sometimes it just keeps you locked inside your own head. Daughter of Cloud accurately depicts an artist who has pushed his artistic license to its very limit. It also makes a convincing argument for the virtue of accepting some of those pushed-aside limitations.
