Roy Montgomery - Camera Melancholia 2xLP

Roy Montgomery

Camera Melancholia 2xLP (Grapefruit Records)

Camera Melancholia is a double album of instrumental music inspired by and dedicated to Kerry McCarthy (1967-2021) who was Roy's partner for twenty years and the mother of two children they had together. She died from cancer in early 2021 after first being diagnosed in 2014. Kerry was a professional curator in the area of pictorial collections, particularly around photographic material, and her PhD used the work of Roland Barthes to theorise about the legacies of images associated with Antarctic exploration in the early 20th Century. The cover art for Camera Melancholia was provided by Ronnie van Hout, an Aotearoa New Zealand artist associated with the earliest graphic design work for Flying Nun Records. Ronnie was also a very close and longstanding friend of Kerry. The gatefold album includes the text for ten poems written for and about Kerry.

2xLP in deluxe gatefold jacket

Retail price - $35.98 but $34 direct from Grapefruit

Limited to 500 copies.

Side A

1) First Exposure

2) A Series of Images From Your Youth

3) On the Eve of Leaving Dunedin for Christchurch

4) Courtship Caught Fleetingly

5) Second Exposure

Side B

6) The Very Picture of Dignity and Determination

7) Some Footage of Dancing that No-One Else Saw

8) Playing With the Children

9) Your Albescence 

Side C

10) In Mutual Flux

11) Aura of the Afterlife 1

12) Aura of the Afterlife 2

13) Aura of the Afterlife 3

Side D

14) Aura of the Afterlife 4

15) Aura of the Afterlife 5

16) Aura of the Afterlife 6