Nebula is a suitably titled debut album of swirling, amorphous electro-psychedelic noise by Bostonian tripsters, Violet Nox.
The album positively radiates with the talent of several prominent members of Boston’s underground psych/experimental music scene like Karen Zanes on guitar and vocals, Kris Thompson (of The Prefab Messiahs/Abunai!) on synths and the production work of Gary War and Joe Turner (also of Abunai!). The group members blend their individual styles together into deeply entrancing sonic sculptures that are as danceable as they are spacy.
The music here fits in well with the recent noisier electro-territories of artists like Anton Newcombe and The Vacant Lots. The entire album is rich with hypnotic beats, dreamy waves of cosmic guitars and snarling drones.
While every one of Nebula’s songs is a total party, it’s the title track that stands out to me the most. You can easily get lost in this spinning acid trip, as the walls of distorted and manipulated guitar and echoing ethereal vocals tangle and melt around its mesmerizing synthetic rhythm. It’s the kind of tune that completely makes you lose all sense of time and space. What more can you ask for from a song?
As hazy and fluorescent as its hallucination-like album cover, Nebula is not only a blistering debut but also a trippy feast for the ears and mind that leaves the listener absolutely scorched.
-KH
Record Crates United 