Bayonne

Since his 2016 debut album Primitives, Bayonne has channeled his vast imagination into an elegant yet wildly experimental form of electronic pop, equal parts meditative and mesmerizing. In the making of his latest body of work, the Austin-based artist/producer/multi-instrumentalist otherwise known as Roger Sellers found himself in even greater need of an outlet for his kinetic creative impulses, thanks to an intense convergence of events in his personal life: his father’s diagnosis with and eventual death from cancer, the end of a significant relationship, and an overwhelming struggle with depression and anxiety. Deeply informed by a deliberate transformation of his musical process, Bayonne’s third full-length Temporary Time ultimately makes for his most expansive work to date—an album of both painfully raw introspection and otherworldly beauty.

The follow-up to 2019’s Drastic Measures, Temporary Time intimately documents a period of psychic inertia experienced by Sellers in recent years. “The title of the record refers to that feeling of stagnancy that happens at certain moments in your life, where you’re not sure what the next move is and feel sort of stuck in limbo,” he explains. “I wrote these songs during a long stretch of self-development, mentally and emotionally and creatively, and in a way they’re like a diary of everything I was going through.” Although Sellers began working on Temporary Time in idyllic seclusion during a solo trip to West Texas, he soon immersed himself in close collaboration with a number of musicians and co-producers, including Danny Reisch (HAIM, Local Natives), Jon Joseph (BØRNS, Gothic Tropic), and longtime Bayonne drummer Matt Toman. Along with adding new depth and texture to Bayonne’s signature sound—an immaculately layered and looping-heavy collision of lush guitar tones, frenetic synth lines, organic percussion, and more—that shift in approach led to significant growth in his strengths as a songwriter and lyricist. “Because of everything I was dealing with, especially with my dad’s declining health, I ended up being much more thoughtful with the lyrical content than in previous records,” Sellers points out.

Mixed by Sellers and Reisch, Temporary Time opens on the moody splendor of “Must Be True,” a piano-driven and quietly piercing breakup song that instantly sets the tone for the album’s dreamy contemplation. From there, Bayonne veers into the propulsive dark-pop of “Right Thing,” one of several tracks featuring ghostlike samples of audio lifted from his family home movies. “One of the last good times I had with my father was playing him that song and showing him where his voice comes in,” says Sellers, who describes “Right Thing” as a gloomy but upbeat reflection on uncertainty. “He was so excited to hear himself on the record, and that was a really meaningful moment for me.” Next, on “Is It Time,” Temporary Time drifts into a mood of lovely surrender—an effect achieved through the track’s hypnotic arrangement of soaring vocals, gorgeously sprawling textures, and Toman’s powerful full-kit drumming (an element Sellers lovingly refers to as “the best drums ever recorded”). “There’s a point in the middle of the song where it feels flying, which to me represents the idea of freeing yourself from anxiety,” he says. “It’s about allowing yourself to take a dive, and to stop worrying about what’s going to happen next.”

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