Monty Cime's 2024 began with a bout of homelessness and ended with a feature in Rolling Stone and a two-week tour up the West Coast. A Honduran trans woman based out of southern California, the precarity inexorably influenced her second full-length record, The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble, most of which was written and arranged in the dorm closet of her bandmate, Sean Hoss, who allowed Monty to stay with her for a semester.

Formed as a solo project in mid-2021, Cime ballooned into an "at least" seven-piece collective: a parade of sorts led by Monty's singular, uncompromising vision--a renewal of Latin American folkloric traditions through the integration of contemporary & regional musical languages, namely emo--but with increasing egalitarian input from long-time members and collaborators, such as the aforementioned Sean Hoss as well as Rowan Collins, whose increasing artistic and technical contributions sculpted 2023's "Laurels of the End of History," an EP, Frida and the Filibusters Bid Farewell and Fall Asunder, Cime's first live record, and, of course, Cime's recursive, self-titled sophomore LP, The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble, released in August 2024.

Receiving immediate and near-unanimous praise far beyond the local underground of southern California, Cime immediately went on tour with long-time friend Composition Booklet, returning home as a new, up-and-coming band to keep an eye on amidst consistent buzz from international press throughout the last quarter of 2024. And among many other features on year-end lists, their sophomore LP was placed at #1 on Rolling Stone's Staff Picks for Best Music of 2024, according to research editor Rick Carp, on the eve of their first-ever west coast tour.

Going into 2025, Cime is still on the up-and-up, and they have a solid, unified vision for what is to come next, hinted at through their transforming live sound. They walked into 2024 haphazardly, and walked out of 2024 triumphantly. Only time can tell what this newfound confidence will afford them.