Roy Montgomery and Martha Skye Murphy make their first album together

Roy Montgomery and Martha Skye Murphy have released Nebular, their first full-length album together, recorded remotely with Montgomery in New Zealand and Murphy in the UK. The Quietus and Pitchfork both reviewed it, on August 7 and August 10.

Pitchfork calls it "foggy ambient drones and wordless, angelic singing," built from stems the pair emailed back and forth. The Quietus says the album channels "the atmosphere of the heavens into expansive compositions," with track titles pointing to space and skies.

The two first worked together when Murphy asked Montgomery to contribute to her 2024 debut Um, and he sent back a recording of himself revving the engine of his 1968 Chrysler. Pitchfork says they bonded over a mutual fondness for Tascam multitrack recorders and call their exchange a "sonic sign language."

Montgomery led the band that cut Flying Nun's inaugural single in 1981, emerged from semi-retirement to record with Grouper in 2010, and released an archival collection of his own solo work earlier this year. Mary Lattimore features on the album's closing track, "At Dusk."

The Quietus singles out the 17-minute centerpiece "The Play of Light and Dark," where strings cut through Montgomery's guitar layers as Murphy's voice builds a web of wordless harmony. The record sits at the experimental edge of rock, closer to ambient composition than song form.