Nebula: Transmissions From The Mojave
The Mojave desert is as beautiful as it is terrifying, with “the big blue sky that goes on forever and at night with very little light pollution, allows you to see the constellations, planets and far off into the heavens, the barren wide open desert terrain is very much awe inspiring,” explains Tom Davies, bassist of NEBULA. The Californian desert provides the key inspirational backdrop to the American doom heroes latest album Transmissions From Mothership Earth. “Since myself and Eddie [Glass, Guitar/Vocals] both live in the Mojave desert in Joshua Tree, it was perfect. There’s nothing better than recording in surroundings that you’re used to and are relaxed and comfortable in.”
The aforementioned comfortable and natural surroundings have seen the band create their most expansive and intricately connected album to date. “I’m also interested in sound design and am always experimenting with unconventional setups and what would happen if I used things in ways they weren’t originally intended for.”
With Davies‘ experimental approach to sound design channelling the influences of his environment, Transmissions From Mothership Earth has an organic mystique to it. The natural flow of the album comes from the band’s song writing and jamming processes. “The flow may come from the fact that some of the songs were parts of each other. We had a few songs that were really quite long and during the process of jamming them out they morphed into they’re own things so naturally they kind of fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. For example, part of existential blues was a section of Wilted flowers before it became Existential Blues and was around 15mins long,” Davies explains.
With the environment at the core of this album, the musical influences were set to enhance the album’s creative process, “SABBATH is always a big influence on us and that goes without saying but definitely bands like HAWKWIND, early MONSTER MAGNET like pre-Spine Of God stuff and Spine Of God have always been big influences. During the recording I discovered a band that I believe are from Scotland called THE COSMIC DEAD. What a great band, I can’t believe I haven’t come across them sooner.” With that in mind, Transmissions From Mothership Earth is very much a product of its environment.
However, being in such a remote area though can “of course it’s a double edged sword too. On the other side of it, we missed four deadlines for sending out the [album’s] master but fortunately Gabriel at our label Heavy Psych Sounds Records is very understanding, forgiving and hardworking and managed to get it out on time,” Davies discloses.
When delving deep into NEBULA’s latest release, there is a vast and rich array sound to wrap your head around. Davies elaborates, “there’s always layers to our songs, little things that you might not hear for the first few spins but then you might notice somewhere down the line. I’ve always loved hearing records with headphones and being completely immersed in the sound. Noises moving around in the stereo image like molecules of a living entity. Since we recorded the record ourselves at my studio. We had the opportunity and luxury to experiment a lot more and have fun with it rather than rushing to get everything done in time.” This applies especially to the band’s song Warzone Speedwulf, Davies tells us, “that song was written during rehearsals near the beginning of the pandemic and as we kept jamming it over time it evolved like cultures in a petri-dish into what was finally recorded. We were messing with it all the way to the end.”
Another song that draws the listener’s attention is the jangly western song The Four Horsemen. Davies elaborates on the story behind the song. “It’s definitely inspired by the sounds of days gone by in the Wild West and where we live, also by bands like JEFFERSON AIRPLANE with a large dose of nebula injected into it. The song really came into its own when we asked a musician/songwriter friend of ours, Camille Marquez, to come in and lay something down to compliment Eddie’s vocals. We basically put her in the hot seat. She hadn’t heard the song before and she improvised a couple of takes and it couldn’t have been any more perfect.”
This ties into the discussion about how the sound has developed over the years, as the band have explored new avenues with their sound. Instead of boxing themselves into a particular formula, the band have naturally evolved over time. Davies goes on to explain, “it’s more just a natural occurrence of the band’s sound evolving over time. As any type of artist or creative being, you’re always looking to challenge and better yourself within your field. We never say ok now let’s write music that’s more spacey or whatever, it’s all very natural and organic.”
NEBULA also brought in a familiar face on Davies’ favourite songs on the album, Wilted Flowers/Melts Your Head. “We had the original NEBULA bass player Mark Abshire come in and record on Melt Your head. He’s always remained a big part of the band behind the scenes since stepping down, we’re all really good friends and hang out regularly so it just seemed right to ask him to come over and play on something.”
Given the space themes throughout the album, we couldn’t resist asking Davies what he thought of the current space tourism industry which he replies with; “you wouldn’t catch me on the maiden voyage or anything but after it had been in operation a little while and was tried and tested, sure I would most definitely take a trip around the Milky Way. If you had the ability to, how could you not? That would be like the equivalent of not ever leaving the street you live on in the town you live in.” And if aliens would enjoy the band’s album? “Maybe they would if the fuzz didn’t fry their brains and they had taken some space drugs of sorts.”
With members old and new joining forces to create a multi-layered and intricate album, what comes next for NEBULA is exciting. “Who knows where it’ll go next and that’s the beauty of it and the exciting part. The journey and not knowing. We do have a split record planned with BLACK RAINBOWS to come out later this year. The songs were recorded at the same time as we did transmission. Our friend, neighbour and label mate Nick Oliveri came over and did some vocals for one of the songs called Take Aim.’ Beyond that, who knows where the sound will go!”
Transmissions From Mothership Earth is out now via Heavy Psych Sounds.
Like NEBULA on Facebook.