LAID back Kent singer songwriter Nick Wilson may not be a household name right now, but the word on his ability is spreading fast.

The 23-year-old from Maidstone has been busy forging a fine soundtrack to the summer and has already released home-recordings of his acoustic work via the internet.

His songs explore familiar themes of love, loss and frustration and are all the more remarkable considering he only has partial hearing.

"I was in a recording studio recently and the engineer showed me some stereo effects - I have never really been able to hear in stereo properly so that was amazing and I really learned a lot from that," explained Nick, who is shortly to start a teaching post at Kent Music School.

Not content merely with his solo work, he has started fronting local rock act Shotgun Junky and is also a member of Godiva, who are a far more mellower folk outfit in keeping with his acoustic work.

Both Nick's parents played guitar in their youth and his uncle formerly played drum for Suzi Quatro. From the age of seven he picked up a guitar and has been writing seriously for the last six years.

"I started off liking obvious things like Nirvana and then discovered many other people like Steve Vai and folk singer Ralph McTell. I've been influenced by so many kinds of music," he added.

Many of his songs have been born out of frustration at dropping out of college, where he felt he was being "treated like a monkey".

With three projects on the go, it seems he is almost spoilt for choice.

Like many young artists trying to make it in the county he felt there were very few places willing to take a chance on people playing original material.

"The one place that was good in Maidstone was the Union Bar, but that has closed now and it's completely changed."

Despite the scarcity of amenable venues he says that the full-on sound of Shotgun Junky has been going down well and are building up a strong fanbase with a number of gigs over the summer. Nick also teaches guitar at weekends, which has been especially rewarding.

"I love teaching guitar as there are those who will just turn up and can't play a thing and when you see them get the hang of it, it's a great feeling. It's taught me a lot about my own playing techniques.

"I can't imagine doing anything else than this. I'll often play really late, until the sun comes up in the morning when the air is really clean."

Anyone looking to either catch some chill out sounds or raw rock would do well to investigate the work of this talented young singer.

Nick Wilson plays Maidstone River Festival on Saturday, July 29 at 8.15pm on the main stage barge. Shotgun Junky play the Beer Cart arms in Canterbury on Tuesday, August 22.