On Kate's own terms

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Word perfect: Kate Nash's artful lyrics aim straight at the jugular of modern youth's restless urban malaise

Popular: Her opportunism and lack of playing by the rules is what makes Nash so endearing

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Few things in life are inevitable. But, along with tonight being dark and tomorrow being Tuesday, it's a reasonably safe bet that Kate Nash's debut album, Made Of Bricks, will cause a bit of a buzz when it lands next week. The 20-year-old's current single has been riding high in the charts for nigh-on a month, kept off the top spot only by Rihanna's freak sleeper smash.

In fact, the runaway success of the impertinently infectious Foundations prompted Nash's label, Polydor offshoot Fiction, to take the rare step of dragging forward her LP release by a full five weeks. 'I guess they thought we should get it out while people still want it,' the artist muses self-effacingly. 'Whatever, I'm really happy that it got brought forward.

I just want it out there, I want people to hear it - I'm, like, really proud.'

She has every right to be. Eighteen months ago she was propped up on cushions with a broken foot, idly penning tunes out of sheer boredom. Those tunes would soon see her whispered about as one of Britain's hottest young singer/songwriters. After accruing an early fan base through the unpredictable sorcery of MySpace, she toured occasional small venues as an excruciatingly shy solo artist, huddled behind the dual shields of a keyboard and an acoustic guitar.

By contrast, July 2007 saw her filling dusk slots at some of the nation's key festivals, her once-threadbare little ditties fleshed out by layered harmonies and a full touring band. The set-up is all but unrecognisable from how it started out.

'I never really had a clear idea of what I wanted... I guess I always thought I'd just know when I got it. But the band's wicked, because Jay [bass and backing vocals] is a friend from Harrow who's been playing with me for a year; Elliot [drums, erstwhile stand-in beatsmith for The Maccabees] was a friend of a friend; and I've got my best mate from when I was five years old on violin. Then, the other night, I was out with another friend, and I totally forgot that he plays guitar, and he's working in this stupid job that he hates, so I was like, "Oh my God, do you wanna come and join us?" And he said yeah. So that's really cool.'

Such opportunism and such lack of playing by the rules is what makes Nash so endearing. The record is produced by Paul Epworth but mastered by Ted Jensen of New York's famous Sterling Sound studios - she says of him: 'He's got giant ears the size of buildings.'

But they've all done a great job: it's a vastly more coherent and polished beast than casual observers of Nash's first release - February's oddball 'grindie' single Caroline's A Victim, on hip micro-label Moshi Moshi - might expect. Her prevailing lairy, slang-spattered storytelling style remains intact but her mischievous depictions of relationships blossoming in Tube stations (or going awry after vomiting on each other's footwear) are artfully penned and aimed straight at the jugular of modern youth's restless urban malaise. In fact, it's a wonder that the name Mike Skinner hasn't cropped up more often in discussions of Nash's polarising oeuvre - it certainly fits better than the lazier, less accurate Lily Allen comparisons that tended to blight her initial press.

Although the ongoing consolidation and polishing process obviously won't do her any harm in the marketability stakes, it's nice to hear that the newlook Nash machine hasn't just been cobbled together by dollar-eyed label bosses. In fact, despite being visibly gobsmacked by the way everything else has started to move at light speed around her, Kate actually seems pretty comfortable with her business relationship.

'Fiction has always known that I'm pretty stubborn and that I want to do things quite naturally.' (They'd be hard-pushed to think otherwise - the introductory banner on her MySpace site has, since pre-Caroline's A Victim days, fiercely maintained that 'it's all a bit home-grown'.) 'I think that's why they signed me, because it's all quite natural and organic. I guess Fiction knows where the fan base came from. They do their best to try to enhance it, but they haven't tried to make me do anything I don't want to do. So far.'

And what if they - or anyone else - did? Is Nash now approaching the level of fame whereby the diva-style tantrums of certain other estuaryvowelled contemporaries become a tempting possibility? Apparently not. 'My mum wouldn't let me get away with it... if I was a dick, she'd be like, "You're a dick. Stop being a dick!"' she giggles, having just inadvertently paraphrased one of her own typically grimy lyrics.

Made Of Bricks (Fiction) is out next Monday.

 

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