Suffuse

Suffuse by Roy Montgomery.
Bandcamp Link: Suffuse

Mrs Flannestad is the New Zealand music fan(-atic) in our family. I really like the dead c, but she was the one who already had the vinyl of DR503 and Eusa Kills when I came home all enthusiastic about them. Anyway, she mentioned Roy Montgomery, (the New Zealand musician who was in Pin Group, Dadamah, and Dissolve, all bands I REALLY like,) had a new album. I said, “Yes, I know, ‘Tropic of Anodyne’.” And she said, “No, another new album!”

It turns out he was initially thinking of taking the vocal tracks from Tropic of Anodyne and having someone else sing them for a new release. Then it “morphed” a record of new songs created specifically for a set of vocalists. According to the press, about half the songs turned out, and thus “Suffuse”.

Roy Montgomery has patented a sort of psychedelic, reverb soaked, multitracked guitar thing, often mixing acoustic and electric guitars. Songs are slow-ish and usually fairly drone-ey.

He ended up with quite a set of vocalists. Haley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux, Juliana Barwick, Liz Harris of Grouper, I am familiar with. She Keeps Bees, Katie Von Schleicher, and Purple Pilgrims, I was not.

Atmospheric, haunting tales of love and loss. My favorite tracks are Rain Bird featuring She Keeps Bees and Landfall featuring Liz Harris.

Midnight music.

#RoyMontgomery #Suffuse #HaleyFohr #SheKeepsBees #KatieVonSchleicher #JulianaBarwick #PurplePilgrims #LizHarris

2017-10-24 Reaching for Indigo

Reaching for Indigo

Reaching for Indigo by Circuit des Yeux.

Bandcamp Link: Reaching for Indigo
Chicago vocalist Haley Fohr seems to wear many different personas as a performer.

Her last, “Jackie Lynn”, was a sort of, I dunno, a cyber country star? Burning Man Burnout?

In any case, some critics are calling this her most “personal” album to date.

While the vocals are perhaps less abstract than some of her albums, I dunno, front persons and vocalists are always first and foremost story tellers, so I hesitate to use words like “personal” for these stories.

On this album, the group deploys a larger, and in some ways more conventional, sound palette than some of her releases, including a string section.

Pretty cool, and allows her contralto vocals to take front and center stage, though she does not hesitate to deploy her voice as an instrument along with the others in the group. There are some particularly nice interactions between her vocals and the synth player, for example.

I would say this is probably her most moving and emotional album, at least, for me, as a listener. Does that make it “personal”? 

#CircuitDesYeux #HaleyFohr #TodaysCommuteSoundtrack