Nick Waterhouse will release new album ‘The Fooler’ on April 1st.
The songwriter has reached a breakthrough in his work, with the lyrics taking on a more narrative-led quality. He’s still informed by R&B, doo wop, and early soul, except he feels ready to express these sounds in a more story-focussed manner.
So, ‘The Fooler’ is conceptual, in a way. In the press note, Nick Waterhouse equally cites his musical influences, and his literary loves – think “modernist writers like Virginia Woolf, Christopher Isherwood, Hart Crane, or Ford Maddox Ford”.
Out on April 1st, this new album is his first since ‘Promenade Blue’ in 2021 and was recorded by Mark Neill in Valdosta, Georgia. Here’s the quote in full…
“Many of the stories in the record come from that feeling of plasticity. What is memory? What is time? What is love between two human beings like in this imaginary city? It’s Cubist. A listener sees the angles of my life – and inexorably, my career – reflected in this work from all sides at once. I started thinking again about my university days, about modernist writers like Virginia Woolf, Christopher Isherwood, Hart Crane, or Ford Maddox Ford; about memory and how it betrays you; what you can see and what you can’t.”
The title itself is an in-joke from those studio sessions, with Nick recalling: “We had a joke in the studio. Some of the guys were like, ‘Nick, you’re gonna end up at a press conference like Dylan in ’65: “Who’s The Fooler?” ‘I don’t know, man, maybe it’s you! Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m becoming The Fooler right now…’”
Two new songs – ‘Hide & Seek’ and the title song – are online now, and they tap into the over-arching themes of the record – the love-lorn vocal taps into classic songwriting, while the lyrics point to a defined, atmospheric world.
Oh, and watch out for the ‘Hide & Seek’ video – it shows Nick Waterhouse reclining in a radio studio. If you have a request for his KFLR show, then get in touch on: +44 20 3514 0357
Check out ‘Hide And Seek’ and ‘The Fooler’ below.
Photo Credit: Benjamin Heath