Of Montreal's new album is a confusing, consuming work of art

Of Montreal's ninth album, "Skeletal Lamping" (Polyvinyl Records), was released to the public on Oct. 21, but its Seattle premiere came on a night in early September at the Pacific Science Center. Packed inside the Seattle Laser Dome, several hundred fans of all ages were prostrated on the floor as "Skeletal Lamping" blasted from the ether at 14,000 watts. Between the pitch-black room, the kaleidoscoping filigree of lasers, and the face-melting volume, this audiophilic cocoon was the only venue imaginable to fully appreciate the music's profoundly schizoid palette.

At first that seems like a harsh critique — it's hard to imagine much use for "Skeletal Lamping" outside a well-appointed laser dome. Then again, technically speaking, the "Mona Lisa" does little more than hang on a wall.

A 55-minute psychedelic symphony broken into innumerable minor movements, it flirts with disco, techno, pop, hip-hop, soft rock, hard rock and prog rock with nods to INXS, the Bee Gees, the Beatles, Zappa, Dylan, Prince, Ween, Jane's Addiction, the Flaming Lips ... the list goes on. Certain riffs, choruses and themes resurface as ear-snagging hooks; many more do not. Vocalist/auteur Kevin Barnes flounces between innuendo and outright salaciousness, obtuseness and insight. Of Montreal newcomers are excused for completely failing to discern the character of Georgie Fruit, the black transsexual alter ego Barnes adopts to execute the album's "concept."

Parsing this tour-de-force into its constituents is moot, however. The point is Barnes' big-picture vision (baffling, titillating, hilarious) and the woozy, post-pop high it imparts. "Skeletal Lamping" is truly, in every noble/pretentious connotation of the word, art.

But it's not just a piece of art. It's the whole gallery.

Playing it on your iPod while doing the dishes is the equivalent of sprinting through that gallery. "Skeletal Lamping" demands time and space of its own. If your local laser dome is unavailable, your living room and a good stereo will suffice.

Or for the ultimate, immersive Of Montreal experience, catch the band at the Showbox SoDo on Wednesday. Their current tour opened last month at the Roseland Ballroom in New York, a show that was as much spectacle as concert, featuring a warehouse-worth of costumes, a mock hanging, the shaving-creaming of the front row, and Barnes singing from horseback as the Athens, Ga.,-based band — an instrument-swapping sextet plus a rotating cast of performance artists — unspooled the loony tunes of "Skeletal Lamping."

Though the rest of the tour stops have been short of that full psychedelic circus, they've apparently come close. Expect Barnes at centerstage in various states of (un)dress, conducting two hours of Of Montreal's most surreal music and theatrics, no lasers necessary.

Jonathan Zwickel: zwickelicious@gmail.com