Lmnop

Stephen Fievet, an Atlanta native who records as LMNOP, employs a deceptively sweet vocal approach and a taste for near-bubblegum melodies that partially conceals the most twisted and perverse sense of humor found anywhere in rock history. Beyond music, Fievet produces the intentionally provocative comic Babysue, creates small handbill posters—including the mid-’90s Internet sensation known as the “missing dog head” poster, a deadpan gag about a poodle named Ling-Ling that was eventually linked to him yet continues circulating among those convinced of its authenticity—and composes starkly autobiographical, intensely personal poetry and prose whose status as either literal confession or elaborate joke remains deliberately ambiguous.

LMNOP first reached the pop underground through three self-released cassettes: 1982’s LMNOP, 1984’s LMNOP LMNOP, and 1985’s LMNO3. These tapes represent Fievet’s most accessible output, consisting of ultra-catchy pop distinguished by clever lyrics, abundant hooks, and his most convincingly innocent vocals. Selected songs from the cassettes were later re-recorded for his initial vinyl releases, 1986’s Elemen Opee Elpee and 1987’s Pony, albums whose sound recalls a blend of R. Stevie Moore and the Three O’Clock.

A darker, more challenging phase began with 1989’s Numbles, whose leaner arrangements accompany lyrics that probe increasingly unsettling emotions and often convey a depressed tone. Both Pony and Numbles appeared on the French label New Rose; after the label folded, Fievet resumed cassette-only releases with 1993’s Mnemonic, essentially a sequel to Numbles, and 1994’s The Tiny Cupcake Dilemma, a collection of 24 live solo acoustic renditions drawn from all prior LMNOP material.

In the mid-’90s Fievet issued two substantial CDs. The 30-track Camera-Sized Life from 1995 deepens the lyrical despair of Numbles and Mnemonic while rendering the songs progressively more fragile and stripped-down, frequently omitting drums and bass altogether. Pound, released in 1996, appends ten further tracks—only slightly more than a quarter of the resulting forty songs exceed two minutes—reduces the instrumentation still further, and shifts the lyrical focus from depression to outright strangeness, the growing hostility and alienation rendered more unsettling by Fievet’s persistently sweet vocal delivery.

Since those two large-scale projects, Fievet has largely suspended LMNOP activity to concentrate on his comic and an online record-review site, though he has taken advantage of home digital tools to reissue his early LPs and cassettes as CD-Rs sold through his website.