With just one solo project behind his moniker of Montresor, (and all the way back in 2015), Melbourne’s Cameron Pikó might not be a household name for fans of instrumental post-rock/prog music, let alone for a more general audience.
Starting back in 2011, with post-rock project Daybreak, Pikó’s first release under the Montresor, was a shift to prog/metal excursions with detailed solos and complex time signatures.
Nine years on, and Montresor is back with his new effort Autopiesis (the property of a living system that allows it to maintain and renew itself by regulating its composition and conserving its boundaries), with another shift in style, but with musical complexity fully intact.
That shift Pikó introduces here is presenting his complex time signatures through the use of mainly acoustic instruments (bassoon, bass clarinet, bass guitar by modern prog stalwart Charlie Cawood, drums) and his guitar as a constant.
As Pikó explains, Autopoiesis’ is an extended labor of love…paying tribute to a lesser-known subgenre of progressive music with a fascinating history, the short-lived Rock in Opposition (RIO) movement of the late 70s. Influenced by RIO bands such as Henry Cow and Univers Zero, the music fuses technical instrumental progressive rock with classical instrumentation.’
The result here is a very intriguing combination of prog and modern classical music that can also have connections to both post-rock and ambient genres, notifying us that prog-rock has still some trick up its sleeve.
