Roy Montgomery & Emma Johnston After Nietzsche

After Nietzsche is a response to Nietzsche's assertion in Twilight of the Idols that “Without music, life would be a mistake”. Roy Montgomery and Emma Johnston recast this as “Life is a mistake set to music” and they take issue with one of Nietzsche's principal tenets concerning fate. After Nietzsche is in a way the sister-album to last year’s Suffuse, where Montgomery composes songs for guest vocalists. Only this time it’s in close partnership with Emma Johnston. Montgomery's distinctive, interweaving guitar play is set as background for Emma Johnston’s angelic vocals & experimentations. Swimming through the four tracks of the album, it’s surprising to notice how different they are. The opening track could have been plucked from one of Montgomery’s 80s projects, while the rest of the a-side takes us into more shadowy territory, Realm Of The Senses with it’s slow strumming and echoing vocals evokes Grouper (who points to Montgomery as being an influence of her work) and the title track After Nietzsche with dramatic vocals and strings, cleverly builds up to a climax that never happens. The last song clocking in at 21:10 is a post-postmodern duet between the two musicians in a dark philosophical mood.