Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

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The Guardian FEBRUARY 10, 2010 - by Sean Michaels

MGMT CONGRATULATE THEMSELVES ON NEW ALBUM

The psychedelic duo's new album, Congratulations, will feature songs about Lady Gaga, Brian Eno and, er, surfing on ecstasy.

MGMT have announced details of their new album, Congratulations. The Brooklyn duo will release their second volley of swirly sunglasses psych-pop on April 13, featuring songs dedicated to Brian Eno and Lady Gaga.

For most of last year, MGMT seemed too busy recording music for other people to have time to record themselves. And yet amid sessions with the Flaming Lips, Kid Cudi and Jay-Z, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser holed up in Malibu and New York and got to work. Spacemen 3 co-founder Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember produced, with mixing by the Lips' Dave Fridmann.

This new album, VanWyngarden told Spin, is much more sincere than the group's million-selling debut, Oracular Spectacular. "[It's] definitely going to shock people," he said. "We dropped any sort of irony that was on the first record, and Congratulations feels true to who we really are."

And who are MGMT "really"? Judging from the song descriptions, at the group's vulnerable heart is, er, drugs. "It's like surfing on ecstasy!" VanWyngarden said of one new song, It's Working. Surfing also features prominently on Siberian Breaks, a twelve-minute epic which is about "surfing in the Arctic Circle by Russia".

There's an instrumental track called Lady Dada, a homage to (you guessed it) the pop singer Lady Gaga. Another tune, Brian Eno, is "a vampire-punk-rock song about finding Brian Eno in, like, a cathedral in Transylvania," VanWyngarden told New York magazine. Even though Paul McCartney has expressed the desire to work with MGMT, neither Gaga, Eno nor the former Beatle appear on Congratulations. The only guest is Royal Trux singer Jennifer Herrema.