Mistletone

MONTERO ALBUM LAUNCH: FRIDAY 27 SEPTEMBER @ HOWLER (Dawson Street, Brunswick) with special guests Andras and Prudence Rees-Lee. Tickets $12 + booking fee on sale now.

If any Melbourne band can rightfully claim the “supergroup” guernsey, it’s Montero. Led by habitual Melbourne dreamer, iconoclast, enthusiast, songwriter, comic book writer, visual artist, animator and frontman extraordinaire Ben Montero, along with longtime collaborator Gerald Wells on synths and stunning harmonies, Chapter Music founder and solo balladeer Guy Blackman on piano, Cameron Potts (Ninety Nine, Baseball, Brighter Later) on the drumkit, local producer Robert “Bobby Brave” Bravington (Early Woman) on bass and Geoffrey O’Connor (Geoffrey O’Connor, Crayon Fields) on guitar, Montero has unveiled one of the standout debut LPs of recent memory, The Loving Gaze.

For their album launch, Montero will be joined by beat maker, proficient house deejay, exotica radio host and ephemeral groove guru, Andras Fox, performing a live set. The bewitching Prudence Rees-Lee will open the evening with a warm deluge of easy listening, baroque-folk music for your geodesic dome, beamed direct from the French Renaissance. A magical lineup of true believers to conjure with and revel in.

The Loving Gaze by Montero is released on vinyl and digital only via Mistletone Records on September 20.

FROM CYNICISM TO BELIEF. From the negative to the positive. From weakness to strength. From black and white to full colour. Montero’s debut album The Loving Gaze holds out a hand to you, the listener; inviting you on a journey that’s both expansive and inward, ever inward.

The masterwork of habitual Melbourne dreamer, iconoclast, enthusiast, songwriter, comic book writer, visual artist, animator and frontman extraordinaire Ben Montero, The Loving Gaze is a willing escapade from the everyday.  This timeless album is an embracing of “bigger day” daydreams and sonic ambition, with a grasp on 1970s auteur rock classicism that’s rarely seen. Yet this is not a retro album; it’s entirely of this moment. Warm and cyclical. Kaleidescopic, rich and strong, yet still containing the roughness of instinct.