Israel Nash

Israel Nash

He spent time in New York City before relocating to Dripping Springs within the past year, but Israel Nash originally hails from Missouri. That's important because the music he makes possesses a Midwestern sensibility, with lots of wide open spaces blowing through his aural palette. Nash describes Rain Plans as inspired by the Hill Country that now surrounds him, yet his soundscapes sound the same windswept plains belonging to early Neil Young and the contemporary orchestrations of Phosphorescent. His heavy guitar jangle and occasionally keening pedal steel never sound forced or hackneyed, however. The title track's lengthy guitar jam and opener "Woman at the Well" manage to accomplish the unthinkable by simultaneously sounding light as the wind yet impossibly heavy-hearted. In the same way that a group like Dawes re-creates the sound of Seventies Laurel Canyon, Israel Nash harks back to another time and makes it his own with noteworthy success.