Nick Waterhouse has announced his new album The Fooler will be released on April 1 via Innovative Leisure / PRES.
The Fooler is partly a farewell to and reclamation of a version of Waterhouse’s past existence framed by a city that is part dream, part reality and part potential – a tale of city haunted by song – a place filled with 45s produced by people like Bert Berns or released on Scepter, Wand, Atlantic and Verve and heard on the jukeboxes in iconic San Francisco institutions like Tosca, Specs and Trieste in North Beach.
We had a joke in the studio,” says Nick Waterhouse. “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…’”
The title of the sixth album from the Californian singer-songwriter is more than just the name of one of its dozen immaculate tracks. The Fooler is both a clue and a red herring. The Fooler is the observed and the observer, narrator, and subject, truth and lie. The Fooler is the shadow and reflection of a city the artist knows sufficiently well to wander with his eyes closed, and a place that very possibly never even existed. The Fooler is not so much an unreliable narrator as a constantly shifting perspective. The Fooler is the new album by Nick Waterhouse, and it’s a lot.
Today the artist shares two new album singles and videos for “Hide And Seek” and “The Fooler.” “Hide And Seek” puts you in the city of dreams that The Fooler unfolds in – and the sound is the place. This track was initially conceived in the summer of 2021 in California, looking out at the coast of the Long Beach harbor. It was a surreal afternoon as massive freighters hung on the horizon, like spaceships in some science fiction film waiting to invade the coast. The whole effect threw into contrast the largeness and terror of the inner life that an insecure relationship can hold. And title track “The Fooler” is about how your own heart and your memories can betray you in really nice ways. Waterhouse also created another way fans can tune in to the music. As depicted in the “Hide and Seek” music video, people can dial into his The Fooler radio show on KFLR and request the new singles. Lines are now live at (833)777-KFLR.
Album Tracklist
1. Looking For A Place
2. Hide And Seek
3. (No) Commitment
4. Play To Win
5. Was It You
6. Late In The Garden
7. The Problem With A Street
8. Plan For Leaving
9. Are You Hurting
10. It Was The Style
11. The Fooler
12. Unreal, Immaterial
