Roy Montgomery: Classic or Dud etc etc

For his solo stuff, try Scenes from the South Island, Temple IV and the more recent Silver Wheel of Prayer. Band stuff - - the Pin Group compilation is fun enough, the Dadamah one often astonishing. Dissolve is a bit hit or miss in comparison, but the semi-spinoff True by Montgomery and Chris Heaphy is excellent.

I wasn't too hot on the Enraptured 7". I've just got hold of Scenes... but haven't had the chance to crack it out yet..

So, I take it you don't like his vocals then, and prefer the instrumental business? His voice is rather *strange* if only because it's INCREDIBLY low, and I guess I can give you dreary too, but I think that's not necessarily bad in this case. Anyways, I'm sort of wondering what makes 324 a good album for you then and not some of his others, since every track (i think) on there has vocals....

That Terrastock thing = Ptolemaic Terrascope spinoff. Investigate and learn.

Awesome

http://media.brainwashed.com/common/images/covers/krank009.jpg

yes

I have been there, Temple IV that is.

Nice.

Very awesome. He's doing academic work now, I gather, but damn if he didn't leave behind some great music.

what field?

when i heard temple iv on the radio once, i pulled over and called to see what it was. that's only happened twice. this guy is great.

He's doing academic work now, I gather, but damn if he didn't leave behind some great music.

thank you for pre-answering the question i was about to ask!

Here ya go:

His official homepage at Lincoln University in NZ

A group effort he participated in back in 2003

And, very happily, a recent interview talking about his music and his current doings.

The interview indicates that there's a new compilation out which I'd not heard about at all! Inroads is the title, but damned if I can find a home page for the label, Rebis. Anyway, here's one site carrying the release.

And talking about his current work in particular:

You're a senior lecturer and group leader at the Environment, Society and Design Division at Lincoln University. Care to tell us a bit about what you do? Has it ever been difficult to combine an academic career with a musical one?

Basically my job is to train up future environmental policy-makers and managers. I lecture undergrads and post-grads and supervise Masters and PhD students researching environmental management topics. Not difficult at all to combine careers since I don't have a musical one. The musical work is a fitful activity and the pressures are more with family life and being a volunteer firefighter in my twilight years.

the song Something Else Again from a mid 90s 7" was always my favorite.

Wow, it's nice to see not only what Roy Montgomery's up to (classic, but another vote for instrumentals above the vocal tracks here, though I happily listen to either) but also what Mats of Broken Face is up to, since I enjoyed and miss the zine and this Deep Water Acres site Ned linked to is new to me. Thanks Ned!

The musical work is a fitful activity and the pressures are more with family life and being a volunteer firefighter in my twilight years.

!!

Rebis is a label out of Chicago run by the band Number None, I think.
Been listening to Temple IV a lot. His side of the Harmony of the Spheres, "Fantasia on a theme by Sandy Bull," is a personal favorite, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvvWccgN3Zs

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
SHREDS is not even the word 4 it

Yup.

Oh yes.

does anyone here like Hash Jar Tempo?

Love 'em.

It's been quite a while since I gave "Well-Oiled" a spin, actually.

does anyone here like Hash Jar Tempo?

Yup, I pulled out Under the Glass earlier this week, actually -- great stuff.

cool i want to check them out...when looking through the Flying Nun discography a few months back, it never occured to me once that the Pin Group might be as relevant as The Clean lol...

There's another new Roy Montgomery track "Pressed Bloom" coming on the CD release of his Grouper split next year: http://sites.google.com/site/yellowelectric/Grouper

HJT is great! Not as great as Dadamah though, imo!

Hi,

Just stumbled on this. I appreciate the comments that have kept the thread going (thanks Ned), albeit fitfully just like my output. Yes I found the "Roy Division" quip funny myself at the time not least when I arrived at work one day (record shop) to find it sprayed in day-glo on the big glass window. Expect a modest crank or two of the handle of output over the next year or so.

Incidentally, was listening to the collab w/ Kirk Lake, "London Is Swinging By His Neck". So, so haunting & beautiful!

xpost -- Hey, you're welcome there sir, glad you could stop by. Looking forward to whatever comes next!

weird. on digital files, song is called "Five Bears at Two Guns Arizona"

Guessing it should be "Ten Beers with Five Bears at Two Guns, Arizona"

Thanks for that. Arranged the digital tracks similarly.

some of this stuff is really trippy, closer to like william tyler and dustin wong or kaki king than the blues stuff i'd imagined

hahahahaha fuck me i was getting this dude mixed up with roy buchanan, never mind

i was like damn roy done changed his style up in the 80s

"down from that hill and up from the pond" and "ill at home" remain my 2 favorite roy montgomery songs, "winding it out in the high country" and that whole album too
can someone give me a little description of what's in this box set?

you guys this box set is so so good

LL, you have probably investigated by now but it's four albums of new material, one with vocals three instrumental. so far I like Bender the most, but it's going to take a while. as a whole it falls more on the scenes from the south island side than the temple IV side, but darkmotif dancehall has some of the heaviness of now the rain sounds...

Love his instrumentals but can't take his voice

I haven't investigated -- I have been really busy! Thank you -- that's exactly what I wanted to know :) Three instrumental is a good sign!
Not a huge fan of his voice either unless he is whispering creepily. It's alright.

I love his voice because I can sing along to it, unlike 99% of the vocalists I love

Ha! I know the feeling.

Love his voice and always happy to hear it.

Bought the new issue of the Wire for the Roy article, probably first time buying an issue since the mid 90s!

No offense to the Wire, I just don't buy magazines much.

As the Sun Sets from Tropic of Anodyne is my theme song for 2017.

aaaaaaand new album:

https://grapefruitrecordclub.com/products/montgomery-roy-suffuse-lp-with-bonus-second-lp-option-pre-order

Called "Suffuse" and it's got tracks he wrote for a handful of guest vocalists, most of whom seem to have taken him up on the offer!

1) Apparition (with Haley Fohr)
2) Rainbird (with She Keeps Bees)
3) Outsider Love Ballad No 1 (with Katie Von Schleicher)
4) Mirage (with Purple Pilgrims)
5) Sigma Octantis (with Julianna Barwick)
6) Landfall (with Liz Harris)

There's a bonus LP available with the vinyl edition which seems to have instantly sold out.

the bonus lp version cost like $52 fuck that shit

it's made from melted down copies of rarer, more expensive records

Haley Fohr!

It's a lovely record.

damn this is a great album!

Scenes From the South Island is so fucking good

^^^^^

I ended up really loving Suffuse as well

And not only is it so fucking good, it's going to be available again soon!

https://grouper.bandcamp.com/album/scenes-from-the-south-island

wait, that song is Nor'wester Head On? I always thought that was Winding It Out in the High Country!

Liz's song on Suffuse is phenomenal

Also forgot to mention, After Nietzsche, the album he released this year with Emma Johnston, is amazing. Emma Johnston has a Liz Fraseresque sorta vocal style (or someone I can't quite place, along the lines of maybe Black Rose or Ordo Equitum Solis... especially on the title track) that totally lights up Roy Montgomery's guitar work, so good.

So the vinyl re-release of Scenes from the South Island has a nice 3-part 16-minute suite as side 4, called Hollyford Valley. Recorded in 2018, not in 1995 with the rest of the album. It's a nice Faith-era Cure sort of sound, a kinda black and white Primary. Instrumental, pretty. So happy he keeps releasing new stuff.

Roy's been posting new tracks on his YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF5NZfRf_kt7ff9rG4la9ig

!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ToEdQiybc

Whole lot more coming in early 2021
https://badabingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/roy-montgomery-40th-anniversary-2021-lp-series

I like how he is casually dropping four-album sets these days like it’s NBD

He posted a new cover on his YouTube channel too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpzshwncFw0

new album is gorgeous

New album "That Best Forgotten Work" is a vocal album! I love his doomy voice, has Roy sung much on his solo albums? The ones I've checked out have been exclusively instrumental.

On and off. Love the singing. Always

"Suffuse" had female guest vocalists singing vocal parts he'd written

buy his singles comp 324 E. 13th Street #7, it has plenty of songs with vocals!

Don't forget the Dadamah and Dissolve albums!

The singles comp as mentioned with the swallows single and Something Else Again? One of my favorites.

I wrote this: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/nov/29/cult-guitarist-roy-montgomery-on-flying-nun-grief-and-embracing-mistakes-its-an-existential-thing. Camera Melancholia is magnificent.

Truly.

oh! this must be live on Spotify soon so I can listen at work... got the vinyl in the mail a few days ago

(also great article!)

Thank you!

Lovely article/interview - I'm a NZer and I'd never heard some of those biographical details before. Glad he's got the Dry Cleaning support slot here - hoping that + the new Matthew Goody Flying Nun book will give him a bit more local attention.

Nice interview, thanks for sharing. I picked up RMHQ earlier this year and greatly enjoyed it. Spun all four discs on repeat on a day trip through a national park in the Pacific Northwest.

The one song with vocals is truly the most beautiful thing I've heard in ages. Doesn't sound like it but makes me think of Nick Cave's Distant Sky, another heartbreakingly melancholic elegy featuring guest female vocals.

saw him play in the Futana Chapel today

i'm from the same place he is and i was a fan of his instrumental 90s stuff years ago but haven't really been able to get into the what i've heard since he's started releasing again. the was pretty nice, particularly the opening omnichord piece. might have to check the new one out. he also mentioned that he's putting a book of verse next year and read some of it out which was pretty hard to watch/listen to but suprisingly good and pretty poignant.

revisting this album tonight for the first time in a long time. probably my favourite vocal track of his (along the Wire cover)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHjMRi7lu9s