Montgomery continues his tour presenting his new and first album, It's Happening, settling his main hallmarks: danceable rhythms, an intense and persistent atmosphere, and a balanced bet on electronic automatism and skilled drums outbursts.
Visiting the Sala X concert hall, Miguel Marín’s new reincarnation, a sort of one-man band, whose origins are experimental electro and numerous influences, comes accompanied by his equals to create quite a different sound from Árbol’s work. Because in order to understand Montgomery, in all his “doing” and “showing” to the audience, we have to take a series of artists into account, coming from various and convergent worlds in a laboratory of ideas. From that, a sort of association-direction comes into being, which encourages the idea of Marín surrounded by his tool boxes and a common work bank where each of them, apparently individually, takes and leaves, as a result, a sound with diverse nuances. Riches of shades which, at the same time, could not be understood without bringing the multidisciplinary component to the fore, along with the dancing of, Montgomery’s experience, previous spectacle and one of the first crawls by this ensemble. However, we must not deceive ourselves: Montgomery can be viewed from a contemplative point as well as from the ecstasy of the agitated first row. This being assisted by a dimply lit atmosphere and a complete absence of chairs. Not a single spot to sit your booty on. We know what we came here for.
The uncut pattern is, broadly speaking, a swing between art-rock essences, energetic jazz attitude and pulses of ambient electro which delivers the long-running songs with a sharp key. Something risky in the world of conventional rock, but that on the fusion plane (not to talk about the world of mixing desks) is required to develop a song. The welcome, submerged in a blue color (perhaps influenced by Marín’s crossing through the Orleans music scene), brews, by the minute, those intros of which Montgomery makes a show. Over time, the first notes of If you stay at home extend, moving away from conventional structures and blending together in the entirety of the piece. One of the most tranquil (and darkest) songs, splashed with Jesus Bascón’s distortions of guitar action (also a member of Árbol), and Amanda Palma’s beats and drum rolls. Her connection with Marín becomes crucial in the solos that would follow and that would mark the culminating moment of the night.
But before, we cannot leave Salon Otto’s bizarre acoustic distortions behind, one of the star songs in the album. Dressed in rock but accompanied by synthesizers, white noises and exotic aesthetics in which repetition and cacophony take us to a subtle mixture between psychedelia and that quasi-random twinkle of jazz. You Love Bolero drinks that exoticism as well, the song that closes It's Happening, delivering a prominent instrumentation and the most complete beater of the band’s influences.
She needs to get what she wants, tied together with Salon Otto, takes us closer to that insistent rhythm that characterizes the greater part of the songs in It's Happening. If we could give a name to that effect, it would be called something like "tunnel effect". The traffic between and through the songs delve into progressions of continuous reading (bass plays and drums bases), with turns and curves (distorted guitars, keyboards and synths), sprayed with intermittent lights at both sides (Amanda’s and Miguel’s voices).
A chapter aside for the play of voices, the contrast between a soft and sweetened (sexy on occasion) female voice collides with the grumbling tone (sometimes agonizing, others vigorous) of the male voice. This riches of registers adapts to the theme of the songs as in the irritated and chaotic She didnt come, following the trail of Salón Otto, but lacking the elegance of such and driven on the intervention of a melancholic melódica.
We are heading towards the two main attractions of the night. By means of the instrumental Forever Young, we prolong that intrauterine, subterranean, ill journey of that, by now familiar, “tunnel effect”, this time in an ascendant direction and in which the aforementioned percussion passages are not missing, whether it is plural with confronted drums, or singular (as is the case with She is running). Having reached this point, although the propping-up of mystical crystal bells splash this last song, the rhythms become primitive and vertiginous. Directed towards pure and utter dancing.
You know that kind of girl is that song, bound to repeat in playlists. Catchy and amplified by its simplicity, it spreads short phrases for dramatic effect which replicate by way of a mirror in Amanda’s choral singing. Curiously, it was this song that was elected by fate to be the protagonist of those inevitable accidents which sometimes happen during the live show. On this occasion, one of those computers of the brand with that so very famous apple decided to commit suicide, nose-diving from Miguel’s desk and eliminating some of the sound support. Two points in favor, since most of the audience barely realized, probably because they were rather busy enjoying their literal (and musical) binge. And also because we were able to take pleasure in a repetition of You know that kind of girl, which served as a full stop for a party that went on to be enlivened by bassist Miriam Blanch in Mr. Blib’s shoes and by a star guest, DJ Lektrono.
