First Listen: Roy Montgomery, 'Suffuse'

New Zealand guitarist Roy Montgomery has never seemed to care much about who heard him, or, really, how often they did. During the last forty years, he has become an essential fixture of his country's florid rock underground, despite a pronounced streak of restless elusion. Montgomery has gone for the better part of decades without new music and frequently pivoted between projects and vibes, picking up an interest just to put it down. In the early 1980s, for instance, he fronted the youthfully agitated post-punk trio The Pin Group, the first band to sign to the essential New Zealand syndicate, Flying Nun; it lasted a year, its reunion even less. And in the late 1990s, well into his next phase as a solo guitarist who still conjures both phosphorescent sunsets and rain-washed mornings, he teamed with kindred stateside spirits Bardo Pond for an essential piece of international psychedelic rock as Hash Jar Tempo. After a perfect second album, they never returned.