The Nephews have been a San Diego staple since 1983. "The Nephews was a kind of Dadaist name that we came up with before the original band started in 1983," says guitarist Tim Ellison. "We revived the group in 2015 as a four-piece with April Drury on keyboards, hence The Nephews and a Niece."
The band's 2022 EP John's Fishing Village was recorded at Singing Serpent in Kensington with Ben Moore, recorded and mixed in mono in three sessions going back to November, for a total of eighteen hours. The group's second collaboration with Moore evolved out of discussions about vintage sounds and old records. "The backing tracks were recorded to tape and the whole record is mixed in mono. The songs are a suite of impressionistic tunes about Southern California and San Diego in particular."
"The record evolved out of a few different creative impulses. Originally, I wanted to try writing lyrics impressionistically, and came up with a couple of short songs. As the writing kept going, we began playing the songs as medleys, made easier by the fact that they share a lot of the same chords. The whole record is really centered in the key of B flat, although it moves around. The medley concept was also inspired by the Who's 'A Quick One (While He's Away).' When it came time to finish the record, we decided to leave them as discrete tracks, but they are in the same sequence that we use for the medleys. The sequence of tracks is actually the order in which they were written."
With the impressionistic lyrics, "It became clear during the writing process that it was shaping up as a set of songs about Southern California and San Diego in particular, and that theme becomes a little more explicit on the second half of the record. The songs are also about the subject of memory and our relationships with the past, particularly with regard to perceptions of our surroundings."
As of 2022, the lineup featured drummer Charlie Brownell (Buzzkill Romantics, Scary Pierre), guitarist Tim Ellison, and bassist Colin Watson (Aminiature).