Murphy and Elliott deliberately abandoned deadlines and stripped away expectations, commercial expectations and any inclination to force songs into a conventional mold. Every session began with a blank Ableton project, and if something wasn’t serving the music, it was shelved without ceremony. Murphy: I think we found reprieve from a world that always seems to be asking people to be something. Pomelo’s sound lands somewhere amid avant-garde electronics, ambient music and art pop, yet the songs remain remarkably inviting. We did the mix in Atmos, so you can really create space—height, width and depth—to showcase those imperfections and textures.