Like pretty much everyone in the music industry, Israel Nash didn’t expect to be sidelined from touring for an entire year. Stuck at his home in the Texas Hill Country outside of Austin, Nash decided he would seize the moment by diving headfirst into the studio he calls Plum Creek Sound that he built on his property around five years before. Nash had been teaching himself the intricacies of running a studio with technical prowess for a while, but being off the road presented an opportunity to really learn how to manage every detail and how to use that knowledge to build songs.
“Whenever I was building the studio, I didn’t know anything about the intricacies of a control room, I just knew that it was a good way to have an HQ to rehearse and to make the records so I didn’t have to spend 500-800 bucks a day in a room somewhere. And I like to make records out in the country,” says Nash. “I didn’t know all the other stuff. It wasn’t like a stroke of genius one night or something, it was just four or five years of realizing over time that you don’t want to be the guy that has a yacht and doesn’t know how to drive it.”
Taking this approach allowed Nash to craft his sixth full length album, Topaz, almost entirely on his own, which finds him working with his most expansive sonic palette to date. Taking his time, Nash layered in different instruments, vocals and effects to create a collection of songs that finds him moving respectfully away from the desert folklore of his previous albums and exploring more soulful, even funky territory. Of course, there is plenty of psychedelic twang to be had on this album, but we also hear Nash taking the kind of musical risks with new instrumentation and arrangements that might not have been possible when constrained by a deadline and a budget. With little restrictions or pressure, Nash took the time to carefully craft each track.
“It just felt like I was putting a record together slowly. I wasn’t really making a big deal about it. I didn’t need to get it in advance to help make it because it was so piecemeal,” reflects Nash.
Compared to 2018’s Lifted, which was inspired by the divisive political climate in the country following the 2016 election, Topaz finds Nash going for a moodier, emotional sound that treads into some familiar territory while also moving in new directions. We hear this in the lyrics on songs like “Closer,” “Down In The Country,” and “Canyonheart.” The change in sound also came from Nash’s decision – partly out of necessity – to source different musical elements from the talented pool of artists in the Austin area instead of bringing in his regular band. Most notably was Adrian Quesada, the multi-faceted guitarist who has been having his own moment as of late with his band the Black Pumas. You can hear Adrian’s funky and creative playing throughout the album.
“Adrian and I have been buds for some years now. He played guitar with me for a few shows. He and I had just been kind of wanting to do something again. He had been sharing the Black Pumas stuff, like early demos and stuff, and I loved the way he was getting sounds,” says Nash. “He has this awesome guitar playing, just great rhythm stabs. That is just what he does, such a rhythmic player, he loves the grooves, and he’ll find one. Whereas I feel like a guy that tries to find more and more melodies and countermelodies. Like, he’s a guy that can find a new groove in such a musical way. It’s pretty awesome.”
Though Nash admits that pulling all of these parts together on his own as if cutting a solo album wasn’t nearly as fun as the kind of chemistry that comes from interacting in person, it’s hard to ignore how good the final album actually sounds. We get big vibrant horns and soulful backing vocals, leading to the kind of massive, psychedelic sound that feels like a strangely beautiful cross between Pink Floyd and a Dap-Tone Records release with Nash’s rich, soaring vocals commanding it all.
Bringing funk, soul, and psychedelic rock with plenty of grooving was a goal from the start. “I still wasn’t done with the horns from Lifted and I wanted to make moodier horns, less orchestrated horns. I was definitely digging a lot of Motown, Parliament Funkadelic, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland. It was kind of like trying to folkify some of these [sounds] in [different] ways and sort of make some fusion,” says Nash.
Topaz may be Nash’s biggest and most interesting record to date, and the title lends itself to a sort of mystical feel. It’s an album that finds the Nash contemplating our moment in time with a sense of optimism while also showcasing his own craftmanship in the studio by trying out an array new sounds. While Nash has always been skilled at building hauntingly gorgeous cinematic soundscapes, Topaz finds him going deeper than ever before. These are songs that can be enjoyed through headphones while sinking into your couch as much as they can be in the live setting. Nash recently reconvened his band for a series of live streams, and if we are lucky they will be touring in support of Topaz before the end of the year.