MONTERO ANNOUNCES AUSTRALIAN 

HEADLINE DATES FOR DECEMBER

Adding to an appearance at Meredith Music Festival, Montero has announced headline dates in Sydney and Melbourne this December.

These shows - which begin on Thursday 13 December at Howler in Melbourne and wrap up at Sydney's Oxford Art Factory on Saturday 15 December - cap off a massive year for Montero, who played Primavera Sound in June and has toured the UK and Europe twice: once last November supporting Mac DeMarco, and again for a string of headline dates this past February, to coincide with the release of his second record, Performer.

Acclaimed visual artist and bandleader Ben Montero was born and bred in Melbourne, but these days bases himself in Athens, Greece. His six-piece band comprises members of Greek psych-heads Acid Baby Jesus and Voyage Limpid Sound, and it is this Greek backing band that will accompany Ben to Australia in December.

Released by Chapter Music in 2018, Performer was co-produced with Grammy Award-winning engineer Riccardo Damian and Jay Watson (Pond, Gum, Tame Impala), and recorded at Mark Ronson's London studio. The music video for Performer's latest single, 'Quantify', premieres today on theMusic.com.au. Watch it here.

"Ben Montero sounds the way his cartoons feel: vibrant with a melancholic tinge,

the hopeful sadness that comes along with being in the world" - Stereogum

"Takes the idea of symphonic pop and tilts it until it becomes unbalanced,

rapturous and strange" - Noisey

"Supertramp vibes and a big heart" - The Fader

"Full of personality, zany touches, huge pop moments and more talkbox

than Frampton Comes Alive" - LNWY

"Glides through clouds of 70's prog, soft-psych pop and glam pomp"

- RRR Album of the Week

Ben has earned a global following off the back of his comic illustrations, which depict the sweet and sad inner lives of a menagerie of introverted, music-loving creatures. As an illustrator, Ben has produced artwork for the likes of Mac DeMarco, Courtney Barnett, Kurt Vile and Pond.

As a musician and bandleader though, he's committed to hauling the extended soundscapes and textures of '70s prog, the easy-listening adult weirdness of Jimmy Webb and Burt Bacharach, and the sports arena pounding of vintage MOR rock into the present day, with an eye to the future.

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