by Nick Waterhouse
Nick Waterhouse is a 25 year old R&B and soul fanatic who combines an uncanny old-school sensibility with a charged, contemporary style. He joins the ranks of similar acts and producers of recent times - Mark Ronson, Amy Winehouse, Sharon Jones, Mayer Hawthorne, Aloe Blacc et al – that are all moving forward into the past, yet all quite different.
For Waterhouse, his muse is the over-modulated sound of vintage ‘50s R&B. His take on such a time-honored tradition evokes the back-alley thrill of New Orleans, Detroit and Memphis in their heyday, he combines an astute attention to detail with an honest desire to match the emotional impact of the music that inspires him by using all vintage equipment recording to magnetic tape and mastered straight to mono on the same Gold Star Studios Lathe that Phil Spector & The Beach Boys once used.
Highlights include “Is That Clear,” which has the youthful brashness of early Stones, while “Say I Wanna Know” boasts both a trenchant Fifties swing and a Raelettes-style confidence about its backing vocals. The musical settings here – the understated Telecaster twang, the honking horns, the rumbling tom-toms – always churn with the right degree of roadhouse charm.
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