200 Gram Virgin Vinyl - 871846 - Pressed at QRP Quality Record Pressings
Rooted in rhythm & blues with a damned Bobby Darin stance that says "I'm the Mayer Hawthorne-type singer that's perfect for adding sensual tension to any given David Lynch soundtrack," Nick Waterhouse is in fine form on his 2014 effort Holly; just don't take that Dan Fogelberg-ish album cover for music filled with '70s nostalgia. Go back a decade or two as the '50s and '60s are where this sometimes garage-rocking, sometimes Allah-Las member gets his kicks, something easily picked up on the album's title track, where a tight horn section, a standard beat combo, and plenty of wet reverb power the lusty tune. Indie Chris Isaak is the way that the cleverly titled third track "It #3" rocks over the detached lyrics, which are an almost haiku-like exploration of paranoia, with the short yet vivid words given more meaning by Waterhouse's increasingly itchy and anxious performance. Impressionist tactics are also applied to the story of the nightmare lady found in "Sleeping Pills," and while the organ and the shuffling beat of "Dead Room" suggest it could turn into the '60s hit "The In-Crowd" at any moment, lyrics come from the Joy Division or Radiohead schools of expressing angst.
Hawthorne may have injected his throwback songs with exciting modern slang and swag, but Waterhouse's style is arguably more interesting, blurring the lines between contemporary and classic and offering a version of Roy Orbison's great Mystery Girl album for the post-everything set. Ten tight songs and out, and the album feels like a mystery itself, but artists who nail that stoic sense of wonder, like Isaak and Orbison, don't come around often. Waterhouse is certainly of their ilk, and since he adds his own abstract touches and modern emotions to the mix, he's arguably one of the best.
Nick Waterhouse’s art springs from a simple idea: everybody wants to be somebody else. One of his heroes, Van Morrison, got his start covering Bobby Bland, whose own musical idol was Nat “King” Cole. In Waterhouse’s view, emulation is a journey; you never truly succeed, but as the singer, guitarist and songwriter puts it, “You become something on the way there.”
Nick was born in 1986 and grew up in Huntington Beach, known predominantly for UFC, commercial surf culture, and tanning salons. He established his musical sensibilities in the middle of the burgeoning southern California Psych-Garage scene (Burger records, Ty Segall, McHugh’s Distillery studio) while retaining his unique perspective on the spirit of American Rhythm & Blues and Rock & Roll.
Waterhouse started performing as a teenager. “It was really motivated by fear,” he recalls. “I’m kind of an introvert, so it was an uncomfortable situation. It was a way to force a crisis.” The young artist experienced an exhilaration he’d never felt before, and hasn’t found anywhere else since. “It’s a feeling of heightened awareness that goes beyond pleasure,” Waterhouse explains. “It has something to do with seeing ahead in time and behind in time all at once. You don’t just get the immediate reward; you get the potential that rewards you the same way.”
Waterhouse explored the idea of potential on his breakthrough single, “Some Place,” a beautifully lean, propulsive track recorded at all-analog studio the Distillery and self released in 2010 on his own Pres label. “Well, there’s someplace that I’d rather be,” Waterhouse sang in a fierce yet plaintive register. “And it’s something that’s been on my mind almost constantly.”
These days, Waterhouse is a successful recording artist, with one well-received LP and and several high-profile tours and collaborations to his name. But his latest work still embodies the struggle of his early forays. During “This Is a Game,” Waterhouse sets up a snarly, post-surf guitar solo with a succinct statement of a cynical outlook: “This is a game / Please remember my words / And don’t get upset when you don’t get what you think you deserve.” And on the gothic-soul strut “Let It Come Down,” he meditates on the inevitability of pain. “If there’s gonna be rain tonight,” he sings in a stoic croon. “Let it come down.”
It’s clear from this material that Waterhouse is in the midst of his own becoming. He isn’t the type to let ecstasy take over, like Van Morrison, or to drawl away in a consummately laid-back register, like Mose Allison. In the tension between his wry lyrics and crisp arrangements, you hear the expression of a worldly skeptic who’s also—when it comes to his art—a sanctified believer. Whoever it was that Nick Waterhouse wanted to be matters less now; these days, he just sounds like himself.
Side A:
1. High Tiding
2. This Is A Game
3. It #3
4. Let It come Down
5. Sleepin' Pills
Side B:
1. Holly
2. Dead Room
3. Well It's Fine
4. Ain't There Something That Money Can't Buy
5. Hands On the Clock
