Nick Waterhouse, Mask Appeal

**Nick Waterhouse** **Mask Appeal** Nick Waterhouse is a legend in the making, an American guitarist-singer-songwriter who can be found on stages all over the world when he's not in the (analog) studio. Since breaking out with his raw, finger-snapping R&B-infused debut Time's All Gone, he has continued to purvey, with great fervor, a distinctive blend of rhythm and blues, swing, soul, and rock 'n' roll. His music takes you on a trip into an Imagist American city; A convertible-view looking into the California sky under swaying Palms; Avenues and alleyways unfold like movie backlots; A walk down a low-slung brick alley suddenly Memphis or Detroit reveals a rusty old side door, it opens into the shadows of a smoke-filled Manhattan after-hours lounge... and the band plays all through the night.. Existing some place between Link Wray, Bobby Darin, and Little Willie John, and exhibiting a body of work that positions him as spiritual son of forebearers of the American school of Lynch, Waits, or even John Fogarty, he is less a revivalist than a practitioner of Rhythm as modern art. Whether it's the raw piano pounding doo-wop of "Katchi" (Never Twice, 2016), the swamp-garage blitz of "Song For Winners"(Nick Waterhouse, 2018) , or the dreamy mambo of "Hide and Seek" (The Fooler, 2023) , there is an unifying force at the heart of all of his work -- Live and on disk, his songs embody the condensed intensity of a golden-era 45 RPM record bridging the electric current of the present.