Of Montreal, St. Thomas and Shumai April 11, 2005

Via AS220:
"The brainchild of singer/guitarist Kevin Barnes, euphoric indie popsters OF MONTREAL were among the second wave of bands to emerge from the sprawling Elephant 6 collective. A native of Athens, GA, Barnes was inspired to form the group in the wake of a broken romance with a woman from Montreal; signing to Bar/None while living in Florida, he subsequently moved to Cleveland and Minneapolis in search of compatible bandmates, finally returning home to collaborate with bassist Bryan Helium (also a member of Athens' Elf Power) and drummer Derek Almstead. Of Montreal returns this Spring with their new album The Sunlandic Twins April 12, 2005. Peppered with beats from the eighties on top of the traditional Of Montreal sound, The Sunlandic Twins will assuredly become an instant Of Montreal classic. In addition to the new album, Of Montreal is preparing to embark on one of their most ambitious national tours ever. As of February 2005, the proposed routing will keep the band on the road for seven months, spanning over a hundred shows and covering countless cities. ST. THOMAS: St. Thomas is Thomas Hansen, born in Oslo, Norway in 1976, where he worked as a mailman. He has quit his job to focus on his musical career, and has been living in Berlin, Germany since December 2001. Thomas played football for Skeid's junior team and for the reserve team in Norwegian third division, until he quit in 1997. He was listening to Will Oldham and Elliott Smith, who at the time were rather unknown artists in Norway, and in December that same year he bought a semi-acoustic guitar and a Fostex four-track recorder to start making his own music. "Well, if this don't cotton-pickin' beat all! A Norwegian combo turns the tables on Cowboy In Sweden, the 1970 soundtrack Lee Hazlewood cut with Nina Lizell (the Nordic Nancy Sinatra), by taking a whack at American-gothic electric-folk music. Armed with Neil Young's harmonica and quavery falsetto, St. Thomas' main sled dog Thomas Hansen also borrows just the right bits and pieces from Palace's Will Oldham and Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous." (Magnet) The Providence / Boston pop combo SHUMAI opens."