Listen / purchase via Smoke CDs : http://www.smokecds.com/cd/38595

Montano is Shanan Holm & Michael Upton, both of whom have been writing electronic music for more than a decade. They first met when both had tracks included on Obscure’s ‘Skankatronics’ compilation in the mid-1990s. When Mike moved to Melbourne in the early-00s, he got back in touch with Shanan who had moved there a few years earlier.
The name Montano name came from the name next to the buzzer at Shanan’s flat and it suited the location-based concept behind the project. A fully collaborative affair – all tracks were written with both members in the same room, writing and working together - the original plan was to make a recording at each of the corners of the Melbourne CBD and make music using only the sounds, but they did two corners and found the sounds were getting pretty similar, so they looked for other distinctive Melbourne places.
As the Montano project was always about making something quite traditionally musical, while trying to make something accessible at the same time, having recognisable sounds from the recordings was originally not important and they found over time that having some more untouched sounds in there was more interesting to listen to. As a result, the album was created using: Melodies from birds chirping and automated station announcements; Chords from a tram bell; Bass lines from the calls of fruit sellers; Beats from train doors; Drum kit from a train pulling into station; and Hi-hats from cicadas.
Since recording this album Montano have gigged around Melbourne, doing fully live laptop improvisations based on loops written before hand with Mike in charge of rhythms and Shanan in charge of textures and chop ups. They’ve also had music featured on radio shows in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane, and contributed a track to a web compilation of like-minded musicians doing similar things in their own cities around the world (“Noise and the City”). With Shanan now back in Wellington and Mike still in Melbourne, Montano are now exploring new working methods for future possibilities.