Allen Stone @ Ace of Spades

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Official website: Allen Stone, Nick Waterhouse
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On his third full-length album, singer/songwriter Allen Stone proves himself deeply devoted to making uncompromisingly soulful music that transcends all pop convention. Stone’s debut for Capitol Records, Radius marks the follow-up to the Chewelah, Washington-bred 28-year-old’s self-released and self-titled sophomore effort, a 2011 album that climbed to the top 10 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart and gained acclaim from renowned rock critic Ann Powers (whose NPR review hailed Allen Stone as “meant for those of us who like our R&B slightly unkempt and exceedingly feelingful”). Made in collaboration with Swedish soul singer/songwriter/phenom Magnus Tingsek, Stone’s latest batch of songs capture the warm energy of that creative connection and transport the listener to a higher and more exalted plane.

Many moons ago Primo Pitino, the DJ of San Francisco’s legendary Oldies Night, passed me a copy of his friend Nick Waterhouse’s “Some Place.” Nick was a local vinyl DJ and the kid working at our Shangri-la, Rooky Ricardo’s Records. Though he didn’t have a band at the time, Waterhouse assembled some local musicians to cut a one-off 45 in the vein of the electrifying mid-century modern rhythm and blues he loved. I threw “Some Place” on the Technics during sound check a few cities down the line and was blown away from the howling falsetto all the way to the end! I gave it a whirl every night from Texas to Tennessee and all the way back home to New York. Not only were the dancers’ feet responding, but they were also asking about the track on a nightly basis. The Nashville Scene was so blown away that they printed a piece on Nick after a single listen. DJs and collectors everywhere wanted it so bad that the little record with the big sound started fetching upwards of $300 on Ebay. Nick’s latest Never Twice is a culmination, intensification, and realization of everything he’s been developing throughout this prolific frenzy. Catchier and loaded with more hits than its predecessors, Nick’s new LP is at the same time harder hitting, more rhythmic, more harmonic, more diverse, and more adventurous than any of the excellent work that already separated him from the pack. A cool and elegant post-post-modern cocktail of 1950s r&b and club jazz, mixed with 1960s soul and boogaloo, and shaken with a minimal contemporary sensibility, Never Twice finds the artist taking his time, refining his vision, and speaking with new authority. In five short years Nick Waterhouse has come a long way and it looks like he may have just painted his masterpiece.

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