Inner Soundtracks--Temple IV by Roy Montgomery--

People who know me well know about my obsession with New Zealand music. It's strange that at this stage I can't really remember how it all started, but it probably was with a Byron Coley article in Spin Magazine. For a while there was the whole Flying Nun Records scene plus the artists on Xpressway. Chills, The Clean, The Bats, Bailter Space, Tall Dwarfs, Alastair Galbraith, Verlaines, Dead C, Look Blue Go Purple, Bill Direen, Cakekitchen, etc....For a place with a very small population, they came up with a lot of fine and diverse music. These days I pick up a record from there once in a while, but not like I the way I used to. But it was a good run while it lasted.

Profound

Roy Montgomery is deep voiced Kiwi guitarist originally known for his Flying Nun band Pin Group and definitely influenced by the Velvet Underground. He later released music as Dadamah and as Dissolve, and collaborated with the band Flying Saucer Attack & Bardo Pond. For a while Roy Montgomery put out records on Drunken Fish Records, a label that really did a great job of putting out innovative music from different parts of the world. He was on the Harmony of Spheres project, where six different artists were given a side to create music. I first heard Montgomery on this record, on the side long Variations On A Theme By Sandy Bull (who incidentally was a great American guitarist/stringed instrument virtuoso), which astounded me.

Temple IV is a hypnotically spiritual and intensely instrumental album that I could not recommend more highly. The album was recorded in NYC on a 4-track cassette recorder over the course of a week with some synthesizer overdubs later. But the genesis of the recordings sprung from his time spent in Tikal, Guatemala, and the night he spent on top of Temple IV in the rain forest. The album was dedicated to a woman he had loved who recently passed on--and this was part of the whole process of coming to terms with the loss. Listening to the album it is hard to believe it was recorded in a room on 13th street. It feels to me like one entire piece in different parts and seems to elapse in real time, rather than the condensed feel we are accustomed to listen to in music. The titles of the songs reflect spirituality and Central America--The Soul Quietens, The Passage of Forms, Jaguar Meets Snake--for some reason it is not that difficult to imagine yourself lying peacefully atop a temple in Guatemala staring up into the dark starry night. Quieter drony pieces are followed by noisier distorted guitar meanderings, but tied together with an underlying rhythm.

Several years later I had the privilege of seeing Roy Montgomery live at a show in New York at The Cooler a meat locker converted into a club on 14th St. I really wanted to get there because I had a strong suspicion that I would not get many opportunities to see him perform. When I heard that the admission was free I thought that I needed to get there super early because I just assumed the place would be swarmed. But I guess that's the way I want to see the world. I had no problem getting in, though eventually the place did get pretty packed. When I got there the venue was still gated up--I wasn't sure I was in the right place, and there was not a lot of foot traffic there. I must have waited about an hour and a half before they let us in. Contrast that with me having to scalp a ticket to see Better Than Ezra at Irving Plaza, a band I tagged along with friends to see who I knew nothing about.

Even more amazing was the fact that the openers on the bill were Godspeed You! Black Emperor from Montreal and the aforementioned Sandy Bull and his first New York gig in 30 years. I will be talking about that part of the show at a future date. Suffice it to say that it was a great show in an odd venue, with the low ceilings, freezers doors, and the metal grids where the meat hooks hung from the ceilings. And there were no shortage of ex-pats in the audience supporting a fellow kiwi, like Hamish Kilgour, drummer from the Clean, and the Bailter Spacers. Aside from that he sounded great, I still can't believe that he actually performed a fantastic duet with a bagpiper!! I wish someone had recorded this gig for posterity.

Aside from the Pin Group and Dadamah, Roy has made a number of solo albums including the similar sounding Scenes From The South Island, And Now The Rains Feels Like Life Is Falling Down Through It, and The Allegory of Hearing. Many of his rare vinyl singles can be heard on the Drunken Fish compilation  324 E13th St and on the more recent Inroads (which contains Dawn Fades Over Ocean, Sister Clean, and the knockout Velvets homage Sterling Morrison Corner 10th and First.) These days he works as a College professor in New Zealand and has not released any new recordings in nearly ten years. Hopefully someday soon he will put out something new in his spare time, even if only a single.