Kenneth J Nash
Album: The Brewer & The Dealer
Label: Old Hotel
Tracks: 13
Website: http://www.kennethjnash.com

I don't know why, but I find there something slightly disturbing about the sleeve to "The Brewer & The Dealer", maybe it's because with the continuing 'advances' in plastic surgery and DNA manipulation by the likes of Monsanto, it pictures what a dedicated musician will look like in 2020, literally becoming one with their instrument.

Kenneth J Nash is a singer songwriter in the troubadour tradition, at least in terms of how he puts his songs together, finely observed and with the relaxed pace of someone that has managed to step outside of the rushing stream of the rat race and found a more meandering way between a and b.

The songs follow a relative simple pattern, with the focus on Nash and his guitar, it's the way he adds the flourishes of backing vocals and fiddle that really give his songs an edge. I admire his subtlety in their use, delicate arrangements that almost take on an ephemeral quality. Vocally there is a really good match between his laidback mellow vocal and the clarity of Fran Taylor.

Nash has a good relationship with melancholy, you can feel the bitterness in his voice on songs like "Falling" where he knows that he is, inevitably, going to repeat mistakes of the past, because he has particular demons that just can't allow him to let go.

"The Brewer & The Dealer" are roles that people can come to rely on in their life, something that's as easy to become attached to as love and relationships and the tribulations caused when the scale moves into the part of the scale marked, addicted and dependent, which sort of brings me back to the cover. Are the songs and the music the cure or is the guitar the instrument of obsessive dependency? In his own way it's a question Kenneth J Nash asks and leaves you to answer.

Neil King