Last week, Los Angeles trio Nebula oversaw the latest in a series of catalog reissues through Heavy Psych Sounds. This coming Friday they’ll do another. Time has been kind to both 2003’s Atomic Ritual and 2006’s Apollo.

That wasn’t necessarily the case at the time. Atomic Ritual saw the always-called-desert-rock-but-are-really-just-punkers-who-fuzz-and-shred-and-bliss-out outfit sign to short-lived Century Media rock-offshoot Liquor & Poker Music, and found them in the studio with Chris Goss (Masters of Reality, Kyuss, etc.) as producer, resulting in several choices being made for the songs that — as founding guitarist/vocalist Eddie Glass and bassist Tom Davies readily admit in the interview below — probably wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

In the case of Apollo — which marked Davies‘ first appearance on record as a member of the band, though he’d filled in live and toured with Nebula prior — it was producer Daniel Rey‘s drive toward a stripped-down feel, making a raw rock version of Nebula‘s sound that resulted in something unlike anything the band had done before or has done since. Two records, seemingly outliers in the catalog, with the impossible task of moving forward from Nebula‘s landmark early work in the Let it Burn EP (discussed here), To the Center (discussed here) and Dos EPs (discussed here) — all previously reissued, along with 2001’s Charged and the compilation Demos & Outtakes ’98-’02 (review here), allowing the band to grow as artists and go through some at-times-bumpy shifts in lineup (though the fistfight story recounted in the interview happened later), and refining the identity they had already forged.

Revisited with open ears — and especially in context of 2009’s Heavy Psych LP (review here), the band’s years of silence and reignition which eventually resulted in 2019’s Holy Shit (review here), both of which were a return to the sometimes-psych, sometimes-whatever-screw-you-for-asking style that has come to define Nebula — the songs on Atomic Ritual and Apollo have the hallmarks of Nebula‘s craft, but they present them in ways entirely of their own, their producers taking almost opposite routes to get there between Goss‘s smoothing effect and Rey‘s history with the Ramones, Raging Slab, Gang Green, etc. When you put them on without the expectation of getting To the Center parts three and four, the listening experience is satisfying today in a way it inherently couldn’t have been 19 and 17 years ago. More then, than fodder for completists.

I was glad to have the chance to talk to Glass and Davies (the latter of whom was also interviewed here about a year ago) about these records, the flashing light changing color by their camera giving an all the more beamed-in-from-space feel to the conversation. Understandably, they were more keen to talk about their next record, the follow-up to Holy Shit, which at the time — like, that very moment — they were recording, with the band itself acting as a producer. They talk about album titles, touring prospects and more besides. And yeah, at one point Eddie had a knock-down-drag-out with one of their drummers. No, it wasn’t Ruben Romano.

Enjoy:

Nebula, Atomic Ritual reissue premiere

Nebula, Apollo reissue premiere

Nebula, Atomic Ritual & Apollo Interview, Jan. 21, 2022

Apollo is available now and Atomic Ritual is out this Friday through Heavy Psych Sounds. They can be ordered internationally here and in the US here. More info on their next album as I get it.

Nebula, Holy Shit (2019)

Nebula on Facebook

Nebula on Instagram

Heavy Psych Sounds on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

Heavy Psych Sounds on Bandcamp

Tags: Atomic Ritual, California, Heavy Psych Sounds, Holy Shit, Los Angeles, Nebula, Nebula Apollo

This entry was posted on Monday, February 7th, 2022 at 8:54 am and is filed under audiObelisk, Bootleg Theater, Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.