Kiran Dass – 2021 Residency Project (residency deferred to 2022)
The Bloomsbury 33 ⅓ series is a widely acclaimed ongoing collection of short books (30,000 words) which focus on individual music albums. Each album featured in the series inhabits a specific place in music history and the purpose of each book is to provide insight for fans, music lovers and scholars alike.
For the first time, the series is expanding to a collection under the banner ‘33 ⅓ Global,’ which will run parallel to the 33 ⅓ series. This will include albums by artists from Oceania including New Zealand. The purpose is to celebrate New Zealand albums, giving them a greater international visibility, offer fresh perspectives on why the album matters and open it up to a wider audience at home and abroad.
The New Zealand album that I have negotiated to write about is Roy Montgomery’s album Scenes from the South Island. Recorded by the Port Hills-based musician while in New York in 1994, the album was reissued on vinyl in late 2019 by US label Yellow Electric.
The album is an ode to the singular landscape of the South Island and is rich in backstory. With titles such as ‘Clear Night, Port Hills’, ‘Rain Shadow Near Christchurch’, ‘The Road to Diamond Harbour’, ‘The Last Kakapo Dreams of Flying’ and ‘Hollyford Valley Day 1’, it is a vivid sonic evocation of New Zealand’s unique landscape and natural world. Montgomery’s music has been an important contribution to our music history in Aotearoa. He was the first artist to release music on the internationally influential and locally adored record label Flying Nun Records with his band The Pin Group, and he continues to record and release albums to critical acclaim. His solo work on Scenes from the South Island has an intrinsically “New Zealand” sound that has a cult following internationally and in New Zealand. The book project is a breakdown of each piece on the album and will provide insight into its production, the books, films and music that have also helped shaped the music, where it sits in the context of important New Zealand albums, and will feature discussion about New Zealand’s landscape and natural world that is infused into the music. It’s an album that could only have emerged from New Zealand.