Why the Montana Single Still Matters: Ambergrove and the Folk Song That Learned From R&B

A California Collective’s Single Sits on the Line From Bon Iver’s Woods to Dijon

In 2010 Kanye West built Lost in the World around Justin Vernon’s voice and a sample of the Bon Iver song Woods. Since then, the border between indie folk and R&B has been crossed in both directions. Montana, the single Ambergrove released on 14 March 2025, is a recent stop on that line. It is an alt-folk song from a California collective that also files its music under alternative indie R&B.

Ambergrove’s Montana sits in the playlist below, and the collective’s artist profile keeps the rest of its coverage in one place. The song came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Listen first, then keep reading for where the record fits.

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The Wave Runs From a Kanye West Sample to Dijon, and Ambergrove Joined It From the Folk Side

The 2010 record is worth starting with because of what it proved. Lost in the World sat on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, one of the most discussed hip-hop albums of its year. Its foundation was Woods, a 2009 Bon Iver song built from layered vocals.

After that, the traffic ran both ways. Producers working in hip-hop and R&B treated folk sounds as raw material. Meanwhile, songwriters who started with acoustic guitars began borrowing R&B’s closeness and its vocal production. By the end of the decade, a singer could move between the two worlds without anyone calling it a crossover.

Ambergrove Wrote Montana as the Third Single From a Debut Album Built Around Collaboration

In that sense, Ambergrove grew up inside that exchange. The project began in 2019 and calls itself a global art project. Its core songwriters live along California’s central and southern coasts. Its collaborative approach puts the songs ahead of individual names, so the music arrives under one title, not a list of members.

The influences make the lineage plain. York Calling introduced the project in February 2025. It listed Dijon, The 1975, Talking Heads and Bon Iver among the artists the collective draws on. Two of those four sit right on the folk and R&B line. One is Bon Iver, whose voice and song Kanye West borrowed. The other is Dijon, the American singer-songwriter whose debut album Absolutely arrived in November 2021.

Montana was the third single from the debut album I Love You As A Bright Horizon. It followed stills in February 2025 and big morning two weeks later. The singles then kept coming every fortnight until the fifteen-track album landed on 2 May 2025.

Montana Leans on Trumpet, Omnichord and an Acoustic Guitar, and It Sits Beside Bon Iver and Dijon

As for the song itself, it is short and unhurried. Montana runs three minutes and one second. Little Garden reviewed it on release. It called the song an acoustic indie folk ballad about small moments that become cherished memories. Germany’s Berlin On Air heard summer nostalgia in it: soft guitar, the vocal in front and trumpet runs behind it.

Those trumpet runs come from Marcus Hamblett, who plays trumpet and flugelhorn on the track. Chris Lambert adds an OP-1 sampler, an Omnichord and a Soma Pipe. The result is an acoustic song with electronic colour around the edges. That is exactly where the R&B in the genre tag lives: in the closeness of the vocal, and in the way the machines shade the guitar instead of replacing it.

That is also where the adjacent acts come in. Justin Vernon spent the years after Woods building folk songs out of studio sound. Dijon, by contrast, came at the same meeting point from the R&B side. Montana sits between them, closer to the folk end. Its horn line would not be out of place on a soul record.

From the BlackSounds.News Curator Team: “The detail we keep returning to is the flugelhorn. In a song this gentle, a brass line could easily have felt like decoration. Instead, it carries the nostalgia the lyric is reaching for, and it is the reason the song works.”

After the Montana Single, Ambergrove Kept Releasing, From Draw! to Rockenrole in 2026

Lost in the Manor heard longing and escape in the song, and it has kept finding listeners since. Meanwhile, Ambergrove has kept releasing music: Draw! in February 2026, Losing Faith In Everything And Emptied On I-10 in May and Rockenrole in September.

So for listeners who come to R&B through its quieter, guitar-led corners, Montana is the right introduction to the collective.

Stream Montana on Apple Music or in the Spotify player above. Then follow Ambergrove on Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, YouTube channel, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X and the official site.

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