{"product_id":"roy-montgomery-martha-skye-murphy-nebular","title":"Roy Montgomery \u0026 Martha Skye Murphy - Nebular","description":"\u003cp\u003eRoy Montgomery, a key figure in the experimental underground rock scene, lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, just a short drive from the sea.\u003cbr\u003eAvant-garde vocalist and songwriter Martha Skye Murphy is based in London.\u003cbr\u003eThough geographically worlds apart, the pair inhabit an intimate and almost tactile shared sonic world.\u003cbr\u003eTheir collaboration feels transformative, like the gradual shifting spell from night to day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat draws them together is the emotional force of each other’s music.\u003cbr\u003eMontgomery’s cyclical, decaying compositions are shaped through intricate guitar and piano work, blending post-rock, folk, and drone.\u003cbr\u003eMurphy, meanwhile, possesses a rare gift for transformation, from the intimate cracked whispers of 'At Dawn' to the hypnotic drift of 'The Play of Dark and Light'.\u003cbr\u003eOn the latter, she evokes old maritime folk tales of fishermen lured into the darkness by the sea’s siren call.\u003cbr\u003eThe song both seduces and warns, finding something magical and frightening in the temptation of drowning.\u003cbr\u003eThough her vocals often resemble fragments of words, consonants, or vowels, they frequently function as pure sound, drawing on glossolalia and prioritising feeling over any ‘learnt’ language.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEmotion and intuition are the driving forces behind Nebular, an album that oscillates between the intimate with the unknown.\u003cbr\u003eThis spirit is reflected in its artwork. Murphy shared a painting by Irish artist Simon English depicting a solitary house bathed in dusky blue light, and the pair quickly settled on it as the cover image.\u003cbr\u003eBoth were captivated by its atmosphere. Montgomery related it to the isolated, seemingly uninhabited houses he encounters while travelling through rural New Zealand—places that inspire a desire to knock on the door and discover what lies beyond.\u003cbr\u003e“Terra incognita springs to mind. A search into the unknown,” Murphy agrees.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe nocturnal and remote nature of the artwork mirrors the process of making Nebular.\u003cbr\u003eWith Montgomery in New Zealand and Murphy in London, the album was created entirely through remote correspondence, with stems exchanged via email.\u003cbr\u003eTheir messages were often written and read at different times of day, and, because of the time difference and the demands of daily life, replies usually were sent late at night and the music too often composed at nocturnal hours.\u003cbr\u003eTheir exchanges took on the quality of pen pals sending letters across great distances.\u003cbr\u003eThis suspended sense of time is echoed in Nebular’s sound, with its feeling of temporal drift and timelessness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn Nebular, Montgomery and Murphy have harnessed raw emotion and launched it into a time capsule bound for the stars.\u003cbr\u003eIt allows you to drift, to be present, and to feel; creating something timeless.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"AD93","offers":[{"title":"Vinyl LP","offer_id":58295489593676,"sku":"BLX-14928","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0841\/2738\/3884\/files\/0191400680418.jpg?v=1785848695","url":"https:\/\/badlands.co.uk\/products\/roy-montgomery-martha-skye-murphy-nebular","provider":"Badlands","version":"1.0","type":"link"}