Nicholas James Murphy, better known by his stage name, Chet Faker, released his second album, Built on Glass, this past week.
Known for his smooth electronic sound, the artist from Melbourne, Australia has quickly garnered success. In October of 2012 he won ‘Breakthrough Artist of the Year,’ and his debut album, Thinking in Textures, won ‘Best Independent Single/EP’ at the Australian Independent Records Awards. Last January, he also won ‘Best Independent Release’ at the Rolling Stone Australia Awards for 2012.
Chet Faker is clearly a talented emerging artist, and his latest album proves that he has much to offer and an ability not only to produce catchy beats especially popular in today’s pop culture, but also to evoke his thoughts with emotionally acute lyrics.
The synthesis of his instrumentation and poetry result in a strong lyricism that evokes Chet Faker’s desires, grievances and delights in their most bare form.
While fans of James Blake, Milosh and Mount Kimbie will appreciate Chet Faker’s music for its laid back, cool and sultry sound, artists that are not of the electronic genre also influence his music. In fact, Murphy based his stage name, Chet Faker, from Chet Baker, a well- known American jazz musician popular in the 1950s.
“I listened to a lot of jazz and I was a big fan of Chet Baker and the way he sang, when he moved into mainstream singing. He had this really fragile vocal style — this really, broken, close-up and intimate style. The name is kind of just an ode to Chet Baker and the mood of music he used to play — something I would like to at least attempt to play homage to in my own music,” Chet Faker explained in Interview magazine.
Chet Faker’s style is versatile and refuses to fit itself into one genre. While on iTunes it may be labeled as electronic, it is also infused with jazz and blues rhythms.
Thus, it seems gratuitous to categorize his music under only one division when he implies that his music has been influenced by many musical sources.
Murphy’s upbringing may be closely related to this.
In the same Interview magazine interview he describes some of his earliest influences:
“I was lucky, my parents had really different tastes in music,” Faker told Interview. “My mum was listening to a lot of Motown. I think the most played record in our house was the Big Chill Soundtrack — so Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, the Temptations, Otis Redding. I think that’s where I got my love for a good hook, a good soul hook — really smooth and warm and from the heart.”
“And then my dad would listen to the chilled out Ibiza CDs; all that super down tempo female vocal kind of stuff,” Faker said. “It’s like my parents’ musical tastes are the mother and father of my music. It’s their fault for making me so emotional and in tune with my emotions!”
Faker implies that he is an emotional musician. In his song, “Melt,” his deep and slightly rugged voice sings about the tribulations of loving someone playing hard to get:
“You gotta move and your body is the shape I want / And everything you say is on fire / You’ve got the easiest position to destroy my life / All you have to do is arrive.”
While the lyrics may read exaggeratedly when unaccompanied by music, Faker is careful not to become melodramatic. In “Melt,” he is accompanied by Kilo Kish, who sings from the pursued girl’s perspective:
“I need a bit of coffee and a warm sun, dusty ideas only half spun / The verse I’m singing only half sung / Half flirting and I’m half sprung.”
The playful rhyme of these lyrics and Faker’s smooth, seductive voice bring a lightheartedness to the track without which the song may begin to sound whiny. In his other tracks, Faker, too, maintains a nonchalant yet sensitive air, making his songs relatable and satisfying to listen to.
Faker recently performed at his first music festival this March at SXSW and is currently touring abroad.
Hopkins fans can check Faker out in Washington, D.C., where he is scheduled to play at the U Street Music Hall on May 15.
