"Nick Waterhouse is someone you misjudge at your peril." - Clash Magazine
LA-based troubadour Nick Waterhouse takes a spiritual look to the past on new album Promenade Bluedue outthis Friday on Innovative Leisure and co-produced by Paul Butler (Michael Kiwanuka, Devendra Banhart). In Nick’s musical and lyrical world, blue is a refraction of his life and memories — shadowing a deep, spiritual San Francisco that fostered his musical vocabulary but has now been stamped out irrevocably; evoking the endless tours, marathon recording sessions, and highs and lows of success he’s experienced in his decade-long career; conjuring romances that were doomed, loves that lingered, and hope for future days of parity and partnership; summoning spirits of people who have gone but permeate his mind forever. The world of Promenade Blue represents rebirth and reinvigoration as well as a clarity of purpose.
On De Lux’s first two albums the duo tackled the innocence of youth and generational anxiety. Their third album, More Disco Songs About Love, smashed them together to create an ambitious party record about all sorts of stuff you didn’t know you could love. This go-around Sean and Isaac are still funny and profound and their sound remains easy to groove to, but the band is more influenced by the fun 80’s new wave of the Tom Tom Club and the experimentation and imagery of The Clash’s “Sandinista!” than cerebral DFA era disco.
In anticipation of the LA duo’s upcoming fourth album, De Lux are releasing a string of singles and two EPs. The first EP, titled “Uneven”, contains three new songs brimming with a newfound playful confidence that is the result of throwing out the old playbook and embracing the uncomfortable unknown. After writing, performing, recording, and producing three albums themselves, they’ve traded their typically hermetic recording process at their Burbank studio for a more collaborative experience. This time Sean and Isaac invited the members of their live band to record to tape at Jonny Bell’s Jazzcats Studio in Long Beach, CA. While De Lux has always been able to write immediately danceable and quirky pop songs with a strong dose of wit, these recordings get the sonic boost they deserve to match the quality and camaraderie of their intense and acclaimed live performances.
"On and On (Till the End of Us)" is the first song on the EP. It starts with an unrelenting hiccup of a beat followed by disarming 8 bit beeps and boops before fidgety Chic style guitars and otherworldly strings come in that sound as if they could be the soundtrack to an intergalactic mission to save your home planet from being obliterated. Sean Guerin’s faraway sounding vocals are delivered with an urgency that makes you feel like you’re the world’s last hope.
As Clash reports, Nick Waterhouse unveils a new single, "Place Names," from his upcoming album Promenade Blue. Waterhouse explains: "'Place Names' is the song I have been writing my entire life. I wanted to figure out a way to astrally project the listener into all the places and pathways - metropolitan or naturalistic - I could. Look up at the light of a big sky against a hillside city dotted with lights, the sea rising before you, the street unfolding as you climb up from the subway stairs, all in some dreamy place filled with promise and wisdom it can deliver to you. Then remember everyone who ever brought beauty into your own life." Promenade Blue is due out on April 9th, 2021. Pre-order it here.
Jimmy Edgar, one of electronic music's most versatile and unique producers, has just shared another forward-facing double A-side single, comprised of “BE WITH YOU” (featuring the vocal talents of Mille Go Lightly) and the instrumental “ZIG ZAG”. The new singles arrive in the wake of Edgar’s recently released double drop of tracks featuring Danny Brown (“GET UP”) and SOPHIE (“METAL”), as well as his collaboration with Hudson Mohawke earlier this year. The bevy of recent material makes for an ever-expanding body of new music from the genre-bending, boundary-pushing artist as he works toward his next full length project, Cheetah Bend.
As Clash reports: “I met Millie Go Lightly passing by my Atlanta studio; I heard some amazing vocals coming out of the room and my engineer offered to introduce us,” remembers Edgar. “We laughed cause we were wearing the exact same color coordination and couldn’t get past that. I played her some sounds and she went in and freestyled everything on the spot just like the other ATL rap artists I work with. I love her story, too: she’s from London but lasered in on Atlanta and started working with Young Thug, all on a string of inspiration. We are aligned in the sense that she has this infectious confidence and talent to back it up.”
And as Line of Best Fit puts it: “‘ZIGZAG’ is an Autumn song from an animated cauldron where magical beings cast spells on you to confuse and disturb you, causing many distractions in your life moments.,” he continues. “When it finally opens to the end melodies you realize your own power and the only spells cast on you are the ones that you allow.”
