If there’s any trait that New Zealand guitarist Roy Montgomery and Grouper mastermind Liz Harris share as songwriters, it is their ability to build diaphanous sounds into forms as spired and sacred as temples. Montgomery and Harris have joined forces in the past, namely for 2010’s split LP Roy Montgomery/Grouper, and they reconvene on “Landfall”—the lead single for Montgomery’s forthcoming record Suffuse—to create a shrine of ethereal noise.
As usual, Harris’ lyrics are elusive. Instead of concrete words, utterances are drawn out of her like silken thread from an unwinding spool, tangling with fragments of Montgomery’s multi-tracked guitar. His composition feels as sprawling as Harris’ voice, but assumes a more jagged presence, his delayed riffs and brittle strums are the briny waves and sharp edge to Harris’ siren song. The more intertwined Montgomery and Harris’ mediums become, the higher and more beautifully they rise.
