Roy Montgomery: Classic or Dud etc etc

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

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