R. Ring

The project of Kelley Deal and Mike Montgomery, R. Ring combines fuzzed-out rock, melancholy Americana, and experimental arrangements into catchily mercurial songs. Alongside Deal's work with the Breeders and Protomartyr and Montgomery's obligations as the owner of Candyland Recording Studio and guitarist for the post-rock band Ampline, the duo forged their raw yet nuanced style on 2017's Ignite the Rest, then added more polish and moodier atmospheres to 2023's War Poems, We Rested. Deal met Montgomery in 2010, when she was invited to record a song for a Guided by Voices tribute album. Her backing band, Buffalo Killers, suggested Montgomery's studio Candyland in Cincinnati (he later moved the studio to Dayton, Kentucky, an amusing parallel with Deal's home base of Dayton, Ohio). When Montgomery played a gig opening for a band he was recording, he invited Deal to perform with him. They soon worked on music together, including the 2012 single "Salt," which became the theme song to vegan chef Isa Chandra Moskowitz's online cooking show Make It Vegan, and Fallout & Fire/SEE, which Misra released that year. Also in 2012, they issued a cover of Devo's "Mr. DNA" that appeared in a limited edition of 100 copies packaged in grip tape-covered blocks of wood. The following year, they commemorated their first European tour with the Rise EP. R. Ring returned in 2015 with a pair of split singles: Pussy Peril, a collaboration with Quailbones, was released that July on Sofa Burn, while A Half of Seven, which also featured Protomartyr, arrived that July. Several songs from these EPs and singles were collected on the duo's debut album. Appearing in April 2017 on Sofa Burn, Ignite the Rest was rounded out with performances by cellist Lori Goldston and Bat Fangs/Speed Stick drummer Laura King. Not long after Ignite the Rest's release, Montgomery and Deal started work on R. Ring's next album. Wishing to branch out from the relatively simple sound of their debut, they wrote in the studio with King, reunited with Goldston, and recruited vibraphonist Joe Suer. Deal's duties as a touring member of Protomartyr and Montgomery's work at Candyland slowed their creative process somewhat, and when the COVID-19 global pandemic struck, they used that time to refine their recordings. The lush, dynamically wide-ranging War Poems, We Rested arrived in January 2023 on Don Giovanni; a limited edition of the album included a chapbook of poems by Sadie Dupuis, Lee Ranaldo, and award-winning poet and music writer Hanif Abdurraqib among others.
© Heather Phares /TiVo