Record Review: Nick Waterhouse

by | Jun 4, 2012 | Reviews

Nick Waterhouse
Time’s All Gone

San Francisco, CA

(Innovative Leisure)

“Retro soul and analog production”

Get to know Nick Waterhouse now, so you’ll have the opportunity to truthfully say “I knew him before he was famous” in about twelve months. If this new record is any indication, he’s poised to become the next thing to come up from the underground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJruQmdlU10

A product of the Bay Area’s mini-Motown revival, Waterhouse’s tunes reveal a smooth, earnest soul that’s just begging to be blasted through open car windows on a steamy downtown afternoon. San Francisco is a town where the 1960s never really went away, and Time’s All Gone is an appropriately faithful reconstruction of mid-’60s R&B, stripped of the kitsch factor that usually clouds throwback music. This isn’t tribute-band, high-school reunion classic rock – Time’s All Gone oozes a sexy authenticity, and Waterhouse plays, records, and even looks like he hopped into Doc Brown’s DeLorean and just arrived straight from 1960, with an authoritative brass section and a bevy of cooing backup singers in tow. Time’s All Gone is steeped in the fuzzy, echoing tradition of first-generation R&B, and makes a classy choice and surefire impression-maker for parties and road trips. Don’t be surprised if any of his work turns up in the end credits of a Mad Men episode.

www.nickwaterhouse.com