Pod Insights Song Exploder of Montreal - Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games About this episode Kevin Barnes started of Montreal in 1996 in Athens, Georgia. The Sunlandic Twins came out in 2005; it was their seventh album. And I remember when that album came out, how it felt like they were suddenly everywhere. And the breakout song from that breakout album was “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games.” And so, for this episode, I spoke to Kevin Barnes about how that song came together, and what it meant to them then, and what it means to them now.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Hrishikesh Hirway? You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway.
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0:42 Hrishikesh Hirway? Kevin Barnes started of Montreal in 1996 in Athens, Georgia. The Sunland Twins came out in 2005. It was their seventh album. And I remember when that album came out, how it felt like they were suddenly everywhere. And the breakout song from that breakout album was "Wraith Pin to the Mist" and "Other Games." And so for this episode, I spoke to Kevin Barnes about how that song came together and what it meant to them then, and what it means to them now.
1:35 Hrishikesh Hirway? Could I get you to just do an introduction for the beginning of the episode?
1:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, my name is Kevin Barnes and I am of Montreal.
1:44 Hrishikesh Hirway? So in my understanding, you made a few records in more of a band incarnation. But by the time this album came around, you were making stuff more sort of in a solo mode. Is that right?
1:56 Speaker 02 Yeah, I had like a pretty solid lineup for a few years and we had made a couple of records. The records didn't sell well and people weren't really fibbing with them. And people in the band were sort of losing interest in being in Montreal and wanting to do their own things. And so the band sort of dissolved. And then I made "Satanic Panic in the Attic" by myself, for the most part. And that record did really well by our standards at that point. It was like. A big jump up.
2:25 Hrishikesh Hirway? Yeah.
2:26 Speaker 02 But then I sort of realized like I really liked working by myself because when I first started making music, I did it by myself because I didn't have any other people around me. I was living in South Florida with my mom and dad and there weren't a lot of people that were into the kind of thing that I was into. Actually, there was nobody that was into the kind of stuff that I was into. So just pretty much did it all myself then, but always kind of assumed that it would be better to have a group of people because then everyone's kind of more invested and it's less less on my plate.
2:54 Hrishikesh Hirway? And less lonely.
2:55 Speaker 02 A little bit less lonely, yeah, for sure. But then there's also problems that come with that because then like there's egos and there's like emotions and like people were like, oh, you know, you played that bass part, but I'm the bassist. Why would you play it? So I kind of like, yeah, I reached a point where I was like, I can just do this myself because I want to and I have all these ideas and have a very specific bass line in mind or a very specific synth part in mind. And it was also just really fun, especially if you're by yourself and you can really zoom in on all the little details and the minutia and really get lost in that world. And it's so fulfilling. I always think of it like painting that like so many people create these incredible works, these paintings, and it's kind of just assumed that they did it by themselves. And, you know, it's not weird at all. It's actually, it would be way weirder to
3:40 Speaker 02 do a collaborative painting. So I kind of think about that in a similar way of like recording a song.
3:46 Hrishikesh Hirway? Yeah, I was wondering if there was any feeling of, oh, the albums I did as a band didn't do as well. The album I did solo did better. So that means I should keep working in this way.
3:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, I wonder. I think on some level, maybe it did feel more justified to be more of an egomaniac and to be like, yeah, it's okay that I'm doing all this by myself because look, guys, it's like working.
4:10 Hrishikesh Hirway? I think of you as a pretty prolific artist. Satanic Panic in the Attic came out in 2004, and then Sunlandic Twins came out in 2005. Do you consider yourself prolific?
4:21 Speaker 02 In a weird way, my my self-worth is contingent on that. Like, you know, I kind of feel like, oh, it's embarrassing. I haven't done anything in like six months. You know, like, I need to be constantly re-establishing that I'm an artist in my mind, or else I just feel kind of lost and restless and like a loser.
4:41 Hrishikesh Hirway? I mean, I think I feel the same way, but there's a certain amount of time, some unknown amount of time that I have to wait before the creativity reservoir gets filled back up again. And it usually takes a pretty long time. Do you have a similar experience like that where you have to kind of give it a second? Or can you just dive right back in?
5:02 Speaker 02 Okay, so if I'm working on a new album, a lot of times I'm trying to do it in like the least self-conscious way possible, or I'm just creating things and not thinking like, oh, I'm making an album, or like, what are people gonna think about this? You know, it's just like, just really allow myself to be as free as possible and not imagine an audience, not imagine critics, not imagine any of that side of it, and really just kind of let the whole thing flow.
5:25 Hrishikesh Hirway? What was your life like in that time when you were starting to make this song?
5:30 Speaker 02 My life was insane in between Satanic Panic and Sonic Twins, because I was newly married and my wife was the bass player in the band. And on tour, we discovered she was pregnant and like, we weren't really making any money. We didn't have health insurance. We didn't have any of the things that you think you would need, you know, to like, bring a child onto the earth. So that's kind of like the backdrop for me finishing up Sonic Twins. Nina's pregnant. We were living in a house in Athens with my brother. And even though it was pretty scary, the thought of having a child was still like very abstract, just kind of like mysterious, but not overwhelming or anything. So I was like so able to kind
6:15 Speaker 02 of focus on creating the songs and working in my little bedroom studio.
6:21 Hrishikesh Hirway? Do you think you could pinpoint the first moment of inspiration for Wraith Pin to the Mist?
6:26 Speaker 02 That one, I have like a really strong memory. So I wrote it on an acoustic guitar.
7:03 Speaker 02 It's a pretty small house that my brother and Nina and I lived in. And if you weren't in your bedroom, you were basically in a public space. Yeah. You know, the kitchen and the living room, they were all just sort of one big room. And my brother David would be out there on the table drawing or whatever. And Nina would be doing whatever she was doing. And I remember coming out of my little bedroom studio space and being like, hey, I wrote this song. And I played it for them, like, what do you guys think? And they were like, oh, that's cool.
7:31 Speaker 02 It's kind of funny because it is like, not really the kind of thing that you would normally think would happen on an acoustic guitar because, you know, just playing like, single notes. In that way, like, basically, it's like, obviously a bassline. So it definitely kind of seems like a shower song, that you'd just be like, and you're like, oh, that's kind of cool. And then I had to like, imagine like, how I wanted to kind of like, bring it to life.
7:56 Speaker 02 I just started getting into drum programming and recording on a computer. So I started using this program called Reason. At that time, it was like, pretty like, stiff and funny sounding, but I thought it was really fun. I think I was using Reason in a similar way that people were using drum machines in the eighties and stuff. So I started with just the dum dum dum, and then added some percussion.
8:24 Speaker 02 Wraith Pin to the Mist was kind of like, aspirational in a way. Like, I want to make fun, funky, upbeat, buoyant, dance music. I always loved Prince when I was like, 12, 13, 14, like, really early, when I was discovering music. Then I kind of moved away from that in my early twenties, when I was, you know, more obsessed with sixties music and psychedelic stuff. But it was like, around Soundtrack Twins where I started coming back to those influences and realizing, like, Prince is really cool, and Duran Duran's really cool. I kind of want to make stuff that's a little bit more like that.
9:04 Hrishikesh Hirway? Where would you get your drum sounds from?
9:06 Speaker 02 Those are all just like Stock Reason drum sounds. Which I always thought was interesting because like all those like early drum machines that people used to use back in the day, like so many songs were made using that same drum machine. But you don't really feel like, oh, all these songs sound the same. Somehow they still have like their own personality. I think that I enjoyed hearing it like really more spacious, hearing just like the kick, like all the little elements, like there aren't that many of them and each one kind of has its strong personality. Like the shaker or like the hi-hat or the tambourine hit.
9:41 Hrishikesh Hirway? So you have these electronic drums that you made in Reason, but then the rest of the elements in the song aren't electronic, right?
9:47 Speaker 02 Yeah, exactly. So I had to use two different programs at the same time. I was using all like the drum software from Reason and then in Cubase I would record the audio guitar and vocals and all that stuff because you couldn't do that in Reason back then.
10:01 Hrishikesh Hirway? Yeah.
10:02 Speaker 02 And then the bassline, of course.
10:13 Speaker 02 When I was recording it, I kind of like did like a disco bassline for the verse.
10:27 Speaker 02 I mean, it's funny because like when I look at those Cubase projects now, they're so minimal. And I was just using this PC that Brian Poole, who played in the band at that time, helped me build. It's nowhere near like as good as the stuff I have now, that I could have like actually like 100 tracks, but at that time I was doing a lot more with less. And it's kind of like a lesson that I'm trying to like remember. Let's have bizarre celebrations. Let's forget who, forget why, forget where. We'll have bizarre celebrations. The groove was so laid back that it allowed me to kind of experiment a bit more with
11:09 Speaker 02 my voice and try to do something that I hadn't really done that much. Sort of like a little bit breathier, a little bit more casual. I think I was really probably influenced a lot by Ray Davies and the Kings.
11:30 Speaker 02 You know, mid to late 60s, there's some songs where he has this very sexy, kind of like, mellow style of singing. And I think that I was kind of trying to emulate that a bit.
11:56 Hrishikesh Hirway? Our conversation continues after this.
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13:13 Hrishikesh Hirway? To me, I always heard the song as a love song. Do you think that's accurate?
13:18 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think that it's a love song. It's sort of like a call to escapism. Like, things can be nasty or stupid, but we can invent our own reality.
13:27 Hrishikesh Hirway? The line, "Let's pretend we don't exist," to me feels like it has a lot of darkness baked into it, even though you sing it in such a light and airy way.
13:36 Speaker 02 Yeah, and even like, "Let's pretend we're in Antarctica," it's like... Why would you want to pretend you're in this desolate, frozen tundra?
13:44 Hrishikesh Hirway? Yeah.
13:45 Speaker 02 You know, it's like, but I was like a big Edward Gore fan. And so I always like, you know, this sort of like dark children's stories. So I think having like a darker edge to a thing that feels like it shouldn't have the darker edge has kind of appealed to me. We'll have bizarre celebrations. We'll play Tristan and Isolde, but make sure I see white sails. Let's pretend we don't exist.
14:13 Hrishikesh Hirway? In a song, you know, about not getting sucked down by the negative, the fact that you're referencing Tristan and Isolde, you know, the most depressing classic love story where both of them die at the end. But in your version, they don't?
14:27 Speaker 02 Yeah, they don't because, you know, we're just play acting. And anyways, you know, they're not real. That's kind of the funny thing, you know, with art, they're like, okay, it was written that way, but it could have been written a different way. Everything could be written in a different way. And everything is like on the table, you know, Oedipus, you know, what a tragic figure like, okay, well, then you could write a flip of that where like he has sex with his mom, kills his father, and they have a nice life together.
14:59 Hrishikesh Hirway? Yeah, yeah, that's an alternate version.
15:03 Speaker 02 So we can pretend that we don't exist. We can pretend we're somewhere that we're not. And we can do it together. Kind of think of it as an homage to magical thinking.
15:15 Hrishikesh Hirway? What does magical thinking mean to you?
15:17 Speaker 02 I guess magical thinking for me is, you know, there's part of your brain that knows this isn't actually something that you find in the natural world. You find it in your psyche. You find it in your creativity, you find it in your imagination. And so on some levels, it can be extremely helpful because if you're feeling a lot of trauma or whatever, and you don't want to just like drown in your trauma, then you kind of have to recreate a new structure that isn't as destructive to your existence. But magical thinking is like basically turning on the television that's inside your head and allowing that to do the work. And I feel like that's, you know, more engaging, more helpful, and probably will help you be more productive
16:01 Speaker 02 if you're trying to do things in the art world.
16:08 Speaker 02 I think I was always sort of drawn to Roman and Greek mythology. They were like the masters of magical thinking and in a way that is definitely more interesting to me than like Catholicism or any of the other forms of like contemporary magical thinking. These different characters, these different stories and how they're passed on for like centuries and they still are still relevant.
16:34 Hrishikesh Hirway? Could you tell me about the title of the song? Where did the title Wraith Pin to the Mist and Other Games come from?
16:40 Speaker 02 At that time especially, I was like, you should be as creative with the song titles as you are with the lyrics and with every other component of it. And, you know, I could call it like Bizarre Celebrations, but that's boring.
16:50 Hrishikesh Hirway? Yeah.
16:50 Speaker 02 You should call it something like Off the Wall. The concept of like doing something that's impossible, like pinning a wraith to a thing like the mist, like not physically possible, but the concept of it is pretty interesting. And if you could do it in your mind, the thought of that is, yeah, it's kind of just like a little brain twister.
17:11 Hrishikesh Hirway? Do you feel like wanting to make dance music and writing a song where the lyrics felt kind of like light and fun, that those things went together?
17:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think so. I think that Sunlight Twins is almost like a childlike record in that the adult world hadn't really crept in yet.
17:30 Hrishikesh Hirway? Is there any chance that, you know, if you're already aware that Nina was pregnant at the time, like, were you thinking about that this is the chance for you to kind of ignore the impending adult reality of having a child?
17:44 Speaker 02 Having a child, dealing with like mental illness, financial stress and marital stress and all these things that up to that point I had been sort of free from.
17:57 Hrishikesh Hirway? Yeah, yeah.
17:58 Speaker 02 Uh, yeah, I think so. I think I was feeling very confident, newly married, have a very good support system at that point, living with my brother and my wife. So even though, you know, there's a very big change on the horizon, I think I was like in a pretty good state of mind, you know, feeling very positive. Like the middle section goes into this kind of like. Preschool Crayola moment with the "Maybe I'll Never Die", these like happy little elves.
18:46 Speaker 02 And then it becomes like the true celebration when all the extra instruments come in. That is like the bizarre celebration. It's like, "Yeah, everyone pick up an instrument", you know, it's like three bass parts.
19:07 Speaker 02 With Soundlike Twins, I started getting into Afrobeat and fehlatcudi. And you can definitely hear it with a lot of the multitracked basslines. I've always been very interested in bass as a melodic instrument and not just as a part of a rhythm track. And as a guitar player, like I'm definitely not a bassist, I'm more a guitar player that plays bass. So I think that, yeah, I got really into creating multi-layered bass parts.
19:36 Speaker 02 And what I think of kind of is like pointillism guitar stuff.
19:44 Speaker 02 Where it's like, everything is just kind of like filling in this little space.
19:50 Speaker 02 Staccato little melodic notes that are like creating a full picture.
19:59 Speaker 02 So I started like thinking about music visually in that way. And I think that like, yeah, recording on the computer was sort of helpful too, because you do have the visual where you see like, you know, the transients, waveforms, whatever. And like, thinking about like, "Okay, well, there's a little space there. Maybe I should put a little bass note there."
20:20 Speaker 02 That's a guitar in reverse. Initially, would have just been like strumming it. And I mean, like, sounds kind of boring, just like strummed. Let's see what it sounds like if it's reversed.
20:30 Hrishikesh Hirway? I mean, I feel like, rather make everything backwards. You know, like, any time I record a thing, I'm like, just flip it around. Because being able to even just add on a little element of lack of recognizability to a sound just feels so much better. You know, just, it's not a literal thing. It's this special, unusual thing.
20:50 Speaker 02 I think that, yeah, probably like being such like a psychedelic pop fan, you know, has always been inspiring for me. And how can we make this guitar not sound like a guitar? How can we make my voice not sound like a voice? How can we, you know, make the drums sound like not drums? Or whatever. That kind of mentality has always been a part of, of the process for me is like, how can I make this thing sound like something it's not? That feels exciting. That feels like I'm doing something.
21:27 Hrishikesh Hirway? You have a lot of tracks of vocals on this, or at least in terms of the way that I got the tracks sent to me.
21:34 Speaker 02 I think that I've always gravitated towards layering really dense harmonies.
21:47 Speaker 02 So usually, I'll have like a harmony idea that'll come and then be like, well, I could do a third one. You know, like sometimes.
22:10 Speaker 02 I wanted it to feel like what the lyrics were saying. It's like, okay, we're having our bizarre celebration. It's really happening. And I think that's probably why I had the sort of extended outros, like, get lost in the vibe that's happening with just the music and the groove of the thing.
22:47 Hrishikesh Hirway? How do you feel about this song these days? Like, does it enter your life or your thoughts much? What's your relationship like with this song now?
22:55 Speaker 02 I kind of feel weird about the past and I don't really think about, wow, what a cool time, because I have a lot of downer energy. I don't really zoom in that often on like, what was positive about that time. But yeah, I mean, to answer your question, I don't really feel that connected. I only really feel connected to the new thing I'm working on. And the thing that I've done in the past doesn't really feel like me. Like, I'll accept that it is me, but like, it's like a different person made it.
23:24 Hrishikesh Hirway? Huh.
23:25 Speaker 02 The song has gone so many funny places that I never would have predicted in a million years, which is funny because it's like, in a lot of ways, one of the more simplistic songs. That's the one thing when I look back on songs like Twins, I'm like, wow, I used so much restraint back then. Like, I kind of allowed things to have more air. And I think the kind of airiness, buoyant quality of the song, I think is what people vibe with. For some reason, it's like, resonated for people on levels that very few of my songs have. Definitely, that wasn't my ambition when I was making it. It was very much just like all the other songs, like, I'm just doing this thing right now and not really thinking that much about it.
24:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, I felt pretty neutral about it, going into it, and felt pretty neutral about it when it was done. It's like, it's fun to make it, but now let's make another thing.
24:26 Hrishikesh Hirway? And now here's Wraith Pin to the Mist and Other Games by Of Montreal in its entirety.
25:06 Speaker 03 Let's have bizarre celebrations Let's forget who, forget why, forget where We'll have bizarre celebrations I'll play the Saturn and Cyprus You the bright beams to bear, bear Let's pretend we don't exist Let's pretend we're in Antarctica Let's pretend we don't exist Let's pretend we're in Antarctica Let's have bizarre celebrations Let's forget when, forget why, forget how We'll have bizarre celebrations
25:51 Speaker 03 We'll play Tristan and his older But make sure I see white sail, sail Let's pretend we don't exist Let's pretend we're in Antarctica Let's pretend we don't exist Let's pretend we're in Antarctica
26:19 Speaker 03 Maybe I'll never die I'll just keep growing younger with you And you'll grow younger too Now it seems too lovely to be true But I know the best things always do Let's pretend we don't exist Let's pretend we're in Antarctica Let's pretend we don't exist
26:49 Speaker 03 Let's pretend we're in Antarctica. Let's pretend we don't exist. Let's pretend we're in Antarctica. Let's pretend we don't exist. Let's pretend we're in Antarctica. Let's pretend we don't exist. Let's pretend we're in Antarctica. Let's pretend we don't exist. Let's pretend we're in Antarctica. Let's pretend we don't exist. Let's pretend we're in Antarctica.
27:32 Speaker 03 Let's pretend we don't exist. Let's pretend we're in Antarctica.
28:37 Hrishikesh Hirway? To learn more, visit songexploder.net. You'll find links to buy or stream this song, and you can watch the music video. This episode was produced by me with Craig Ely, Kathleen Smith, and Mary Dolan, and production assistant Tiger Biskup. The episode artwork is by Carlos Larama, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about all our shows at radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my newsletter, which you can find on the Song Exploder website. You can also get a t-shirt or sweatshirt at songexploder.net/shirt.
29:20 Hrishikesh Hirway? I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. Thanks for listening.
29:25 Hrishikesh Hirway? Radiotopia.
29:29 Hrishikesh Hirway? From PRX.
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