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!

awesome!!

Can I be the only one here that rates And Now the Rain...? After the Pin Group, it was the first solo Roy I fell for, so that may have something to do with my everlasting love of this one.

Thanks for the tip, Sal, I'm listening now and "London Is Swinging By His Neck" is indeed really cool!

Meantime, a clip from last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtzPZ8RBz58

Some Pin Group film footage just up on Youtube. Filmed on 16mm by Ronnie Van Hout it shows us running through Ambivalence and Coat in practice room and gives a reasonably good idea of our dynamic and entertaining stage show. The first two and a half minutes feature a Christchurch poet called Desmond Brice who penned some of the Pin Group's lyrics including the above. Film closes with some flip remarks about Pin Group from local painter Marty Whitworth. Gives you some sense of how droll it was to live in ths city in the early 1980s.

Glad to hear the handle is cranking a bit. I've been wondering what you've been up to the last 5 years or so.

Incidental moment of fandom: Seeing Roy do his thing at the Cooler sometime 'round '94/5 and getting back to my Berkshire home in the middle of the night, stealing my roommate's guitar and having a go at it for the first time. Not nearly as good, but quite thrilling.

New album new album new album...

debut of a new project featuring guitarist Roy Montgomery and sonic warlock Nick Guy. the geological allusions in the group's name are apt, and the results are at once familiar and surprising, wedding Roy's melodies and riffs with Nick's rumbling bass frequencies, shuddering beats, textural drones, and finely crafted sonics.
released may 2011.

(there's a soundcloud sample at the link)

but may has already passed? is it available somewhere?

not in NZ; they're coming up on Christmas there

looks to be available to order at that link

sounds really good

Aquarius Records has it also (just ordered)

bump to say there's a Pin Group soundboard recording from 1981 up on D1mead0zen right now.

wow, sleeve--thank you!!

low rider!

I heard a rumor of an anthology of Roy's work, anyone know anything? I wonder what'd be on it...

there is a 2-CD rarities/outtakes/singles comp which i lost and now cannot find again.

Hmmm, you mean this one, "Inroads"? http://www.discogs.com/Roy-Montgomery-Inroads-New-And-Collected-Works/release/903736

aha

Rebis Recordings has both the Inroads 2 CD comp and the Torlesse Super Group CD... the Inroads is on sale for $12, too.

woot! Pin Group Retrospective reissued on Flying Nun! vinyl and cd! live tracks!

http://exclaim.ca/News/flying_nun_revisits_first-ever_signing_pin_group

Roy Montgomery sure sounds good in Virginia this time of year, and this song rules so hard. Need to own a copy of this record:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z49s1Sv1Bo0&feature=related

GREAT new interview just posted.

http://www.secretdecoder.net/features/2013/05/08/i-would-not-describe-myself-as-a-musician-an-interview-with-roy-montgomery/

Thanks doesnt cover it, Ned

"ill at home" is the scariest song i have ever heard, and i have heard some scary songs

also <3 this guy on the bummers of teaching Administration, the trend toward corporatization, and the traumas of failing students are the lows.

the second Dissolve album, Third Album from the Sun has been sounding really good to me lately

REQUEST:

recordings that either are or sound like Roy Montgomery (partic his solo stuff), but also have human/s playing drums and or a live percussion element.

Some of the moodier/darker Durutti Column stuff, like the songs on Another Setting?

Note - I have heard Hash Jar Tempo but those albums were improvisations, right? They are more out there/noodly than what I'm looking for. (I like them but that's not the sound I'm after)

maybe?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1rF3-gk21U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0OjY3UXiLk

have not heard that durutti column, will look into

i listened to most of the first lanterna song and i liked it ok but the song itself is more traditionally rock with the key changes and whatnot -- i think what i'm looking for is a more...textural sound? i don't know how to describe it, pls bear with me.

the second lanterna song is so worth waiting SIX MINUTES for the drums to start -- the best part about it is that it never turns into one of the big bombastic songs like it totally could. love this song!
i guess i can look it up but if there is anything essential i need to know about them (they are 12, this album is from 1966, whatever) tell me!

i was a big fan of their first lp, way back in '95. they are def. more 'traditional' than RoyMont. the main guy Henry Frayne was also in The Moon Seven Times, and Area before that (both kinda proto-Cocteau Twins-ish?). i think maybe the Lanterna lps get more 'ambient'? i don't know, though--i just went to the Youtubes and found the two closest to Roy Mont. and warning, there were a few that veered more into mannered bombast. There's also Scenic, Bruce Licher's post-Savage Republic outfit, big on the cinematic desert landscapes. and i assume you already know about early Felt?

there's also Land Observations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPF7BwtpXZ8

no drums, though--but also no bombast :)

v good info, thank you. also i assume you already know about early Felt? YES, I have been known to listen to early Felt over and over and over and over.

one of my favorites https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGHQ2s4NQcE

i guess i want hypnotizing vs emotionally bombastic

why didn't that show up? anyway it was the optimist and the poet.

Does Henry Frayne still live in Champaign?!
Wiki says he retired from UIUC, but he's not even 50.

i lost touch w/ him years ago, unfortunately.

ooh i like land observations, but i specifically am looking for stuff with drums

if there's not much of it, that's fine too. i don't even know where else to ask this question, and i very much appreciate the suggestions! i listened to sands (the whole album) yesterday while i was walking and liked most of it. i wish the drums were a little more spare sometimes, but who cares.

Backing up a bit -- Henry Frayne is on FB:

https://www.facebook.com/henry.d.frayne

and he still lives in Champaign, apparently!

cool, thanks ned!

La Lech, here's another recommendation--Cathode was an obscure Boston band; their Steve Fisk-mixed 'Sleeping + Breathing' lp from 1999 might float your boat. the whole lp is posted on youtube, in separate tracks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWknAcd6V18&list=PL98929511BB0B8060

ahhh sounds like 1999. people weren't afraid to be slow and languid back then. that's not exactly what i was looking for, but i like it.

i hope henry frayne has a google alert for his name and finds this thread.

another question -- how does one describe the guitar sound/song structure in this RM song?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DAVNZMx-Lk

can't stop listening to this song again

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

I often listen to Winding it Out in the High Country from Scenes from the South Island and imagine I have stolen a boat and am sailing it straight into a hurricane.

Scenes from the South Island is easily one of the best albums of the 90s. Hearty thanks to Ned (& Piero Scaruffi) for getting my attention

I feel like I need to give his latter albums more attention... And Now the Rain, Allegory of Hearing, and Silver Wheel of Prayer. I need other people to point out the awesome songs and then somehow they become awesome to me too.

That's a great album, and I really like it 100% for real, but man this song is something else! It's so overwhelmingly obscenely creepy and totally way too long but he's like "i'm gonna play this creepy song as long as i want, fu who can't take it" and i really admire that attitude (as long as I like the music, which i do in this case).

questions -
1) is he aping some style i'm not familiar with?
if yes, who? specifically.

if no,
2) why is this song not more famous?

the newest one (...Hey! Badfinger) has yet to click with me.

i haven't heard it -- what's it like?

also i didn't mean creepy like crepey -- i meant sinister/spooky/creepy (which is not the same thing)

parts of temple IV are very sinister/oppressive!

i haven't heard that one
i'll check it out!

Maybe it just comes to mind because he's covered them, but Ill at Home sounds like it could be a 154 era Wire song. The Graham Lewis stuff.

wow, that's an interesting observation! I gotta re-listen with that in mind.

ooh, you are totally right, like a mutual friend or the rhythm from single K.O.!

jeez 154 is so good

so did anyone else pick up this compilation of rare tracks on the label run by grouper's liz harris?

this one: http://www.discogs.com/Roy-Montgomery-324-E-13th-Street-7/release/5617716

it's a reissue of a 1999 compilation I've never actually seen, in pretty fancy packaging with a poster and stuff.

also should i get the hey badfinger thing? the record store down the street has it for $9.

that comp is essential. crucial. Something Else Again is one of my favorite singles ever, and the Shallows is necessary.

Yeah that comp is above/beyond. Have it on the original run. (RIP Drunken Fish.)

sold

three bonus tracks not on the CD edition as well... interesting! just snagged a copy, thanks for the news!

Is it his usual guitar stuff or are there other instruments??

My drum part for Ill at Home is coming along and now I can't really think of the song without the drum part, which makes me wonder why I keep trying to ruin perfectly good Roy Montgomery songs?!

I think one song has a tambourine? but yeah, pretty much all guitar + vocals.

jeez, amateurist, I am envious of you getting to hear this compilation for the first time. my favorite is some other time.

got one from Little Axe distro in PDX for $24

I have the E.N.D. single on Drunken Fish but have never heard the rest of this stuff afaik

Ooh, I forgot how gorgeous Times Three is.

4 Album box set of new material out next month
http://grapefruitrecordclub.com/products/montgomery-roy-r-m-h-q-headquarters-4lp-box-pre-order

Oh man, that looks fantastic, I posted last week about Spotify leading me on by posting new Roy Montgomery: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MC_rBBAiC2Y/maxresdefault.jpg

gotta hear about him sometime

I posted that Roy Montgomery link to the proper Roy Montgomery's facebook wall to much hilarity.

but seriously, I ordered the box set, and... that is a lot of roy montgomery all at once!

No complaints, of course.

Anyone have "Live At The Gladstone Hotel"? There's a hidden track or two tacked on to the end of "Hurricane Fighter Plane", anyone know what they are?

It's out: https://badabingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/r-m-h-q-headquarters

just in time for autumn cold front!

It's quite lovely

If I had to pick one song:

https://badabingrecords.bandcamp.com/track/hungover-heroes

It's called that for a reason.

just bought the digital but it doesn't have the tracks broken up into the 4 "distinct" LPs. Is the individual tracklisting anywhere?

R: Tropic of Anodyne
1. Tropic of Anodyne
2. Dear Future Loser
3. You Always Get What You Deserve
4. I Was A Distant Star
5. Seven Faded Dreams
6. If And Only If
7. Hanging Melody
8. As The Sun Sets

M: Darkmotif Dancehall
1. Rough Take-Off
2. 10538 Overdrive
3. Little Big Star
4. Dazed Pig Dreamhome Slide
5. At The Gogol Au Go Go (for Natstya Terekhova)
6. Six Guitar Salute To Peter Gutteridge
7. Making Love In A Blast Furnace
8. Slow Heroes
9. Rough Landing

H: Bender
1. Ten Beers With Five Beers At Two Guns, Arizona
2. I.O.U. Otto
3. Pipeline
4. And Later We Looked Up At The Stars
5. A Guitar Called Boomslang
6. Another David Lynch Thanks, No Ice
7. Chasing Monica Vitti
8. Cocktails With Can

Q: Transient Global Amnesia
1. Otherness
2. Riding
3. Last Alarm (for Brad Fletcher)
4. Unshore
5. Weathering Mortality (feat. Emma Johnston)

thanks

wanted to do the same thing with the digital tracks myself :)

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

Temple IV is so damn classic

Trudat

was just listening to Scenes from the South Island yesterday evening because it was raining

A new/old album (he'd apparently been sitting on these sessions for a decade):

https://discreetmusicgbg.bandcamp.com/album/guitars-infernal