- Since his 2016 debut albumPrimitives, Bayonne haschanneled his vastimagination into an elegant yet wildly experimentalform of electronic pop, equal parts meditative and mesmerizing. In the making of his latest bodyof work, the Austin-based artist/producer/multi-instrumentalistotherwise known as Roger Sellers found himself in even greater need of an outlet for his kineticcreative impulses,thanks to an intense convergenceof events in his personal life: his father’s diagnosiswith and eventual death from cancer,the endof a significant relationship, and anoverwhelmingstrugglewith depression and anxiety. Deeply informed by a deliberate transformation of his musical process, Bayonne’s third full-length Temporary Timeultimately makes for his most expansive workto date—an album of both painfully rawintrospection and otherworldlybeauty.Thefollow-up to 2019’s Drastic Measures, Temporary Timeintimately documents aperiod of psychic inertiaexperiencedby Sellersin recentyears. “The titleof the recordrefers to that feeling of stagnancy that happens at certain moments in your life, where you’re not surewhat the next move is and feelsort ofstuck in limbo,” heexplains. “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 everythingI was going through.” Although Sellers began working on Temporary Time in idyllicseclusionduringa solo trip to West Texas, he soon immersed himself inclose 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 depthand texture to Bayonne’s signature sound—an immaculatelylayeredand looping-heavy collisionof lushguitar tones, freneticsynth lines, organicpercussion, and more—that shift in approach led to significant growth in his strengthsasa 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 moodysplendorof “Must Be True,” a piano-driven and quietly piercingbreakup song that instantlysets the tone for the album’s dreamycontemplation. From there, Bayonne veers into the propulsivedark-pop of “Right Thing,” one of several tracks featuring ghostlikesamples of audio lifted from hisfamily home movies. “One of the last good times I had with my father was playinghim that song and showing himwhere his voice comes in,” says Sellers, who describes “Right Thing” as a gloomy but upbeat reflectionon uncertainty. “He was so - excited to hear himselfon 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 hypnoticarrangement of soaringvocals, gorgeously sprawling textures, and Toman’s powerfulfull-kit drumming(an element Sellers lovingly refers to as “the best drums ever recorded”). “There’sa point in the middle of the songwhere it feels flying, which to merepresents the idea offreeingyourself from anxiety,” he says. “It’s about allowing yourself to take a dive, and to stop worrying about what’s going to happen next.” And on “Perfect,” Bayonne delivers a radiantpiece of alt-poplit up in luminous beats, lilting background vocals fromThe Deer’s Grace Rowland, and a sublimeflute solo from Sellers’s friend Walter Nichols(who also lends his spellbindingsaxophone work to the track). “It’s the most positive momenton the record, but a little satirical since it’s hard for me to write positivelysometimes,” says Sellers. “In a way I’m almost making fun of myself for being so optimistic, even though it’s still a feel-good song.” All throughout Temporary Time, Sellersembeds his songs with the kind of gloriously strangesonic details that have always defined Bayonne’s music(e.g., the unearthly pedal-steel riffs of “FK,” courtesy of Minnesota-based musician Aaron Fabbrini; the sweetly off-kilterOmnichord tones of the album-closing “Tabitha”). Originally from the Houston suburb of Spring, he took up pianoand drumsas a child and started writing his own material in high school, as well asself-recording with the help of his family’s karaoke machine. By his early 20s he’d discovered minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Terry Reilly, which inspiredhim to infuse a certainatmospheric quality into his work. After putting outa handful of avant-folk-leaning projects under his own name, he adopted the Bayonne monikerin the mid-2010sand released Primitives to acclaim from major outlets like MOJO, who noted that the album merges “the celestial overlaid vocals of AnCo, Toro Y Moi’s soaring gauzy electronic pop, the live, looping sample techniques of tUnE-yArDs and D.D. Dumbo, and even Steve Reich’s shuddering, percussive experiments in repetition—with charming results.”While Bayonne mostly made his first two albums in solitude, the highlycollaborative experience of creating Temporary Timeended up producing anunexpectedbut undeniably welcomeeffect: a return to the unbridledfreedomof his earliest output. “I’d always been a little anxious about handing off my music to other people, but with this record it felt so amazing to get other people involved—it completely opened me up,” says Sellers.“There were moments when it was difficult to write about what I was going through, but the whole process made me fall back in love with music again. I put everything I was feeling into it, and I hope itbrings people some kind of comfort.”