Nov 10, 2019

Sundaze 1945

Hello,


Today's artist has been growing up in Norfolk and attending a school where being into music made you an outsider, his early interest in the electronic scene came from hearing acts like Aphex Twin and Orbital on the radio and reading about the equipment they used in music magazines.

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Nathan Fake is a British electronic musician whose lush, moody recordings range from atmospheric tech-house to vivid, shoegaze-influenced downtempo. Fake (his actual last name) began his career in the farm country of Norfolk in the U.K., where he learned how to play basic acoustic instruments before finding a love of the electronic genres. He moved to Reading at the age of 19, which gained his recordings significantly more exposure, and his demos found their way to producer/remixer/DJ James Holden. Holden immediately signed Fake to his Border Community imprint and released a set of 12"s (Outhouse and The Sky Was Pink) that put him on the global dance scale in terms of recognition. Fans from all electronic genres immediately took to Fake's distinctive sound (including luminaries like François K and Satoshi Tomiie), and his recordings began to be some of the most in demand of 2004.

Several 12"s on the Traum imprint followed in 2005, and Fake released his debut full-length, Drowning in a Sea of Love on Border Community, in March of 2006. Garnering favorable comparisons to Boards of Canada and Ulrich Schnauss, the album was a critical success, earning rave reviews from Pitchfork and Mixmag, among others. Drowning in a Sea of Remixes (featuring reworks by Apparat and Fairmont) followed, and Four Tet remixed album track "You Are Here" in 2007.

Fake subsequently moved to London, and his second album Hard Islands appeared in 2009. The album was significantly more stripped-down and club-friendly than his debut, but still demonstrated his talents for sophisticated sound design. Third full-length Steam Days, featuring singles "Paean" and "Iceni Strings," followed in 2012. The album retained the club-focused energy and rough edge of its predecessor, but its tracks generally had shorter running times, and were more focused and concise. Fake and Wesley Matsell started a label called Cambria Instruments in 2014, debuting with a split 12", followed by Fake's Glaive EP in 2015.

In 2016, Fake signed to Ninja Tune, having previously remixed Ninja Tune-signed artist Dorian Concept the previous year. Fake's first release for the label was Degreelessness, a collaboration with Prurient, which was issued at the tail-end of the year. Providence, Fake's most experimental full-length to date, appeared in March of 2017. This was followed by two Providence Reworks EPs and the more dancefloor-oriented Sunder EP, which appeared in 2018.


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The Outhouse main mix is absolutely massive. Grooves for days, incredibly tight mix, foreshadows his later The Sky Was Pink. Watlington Street, this five-tracker of mostly bangers stands up surprisingly well for its age. 'Bored of House' sounds steely and futuristic, while the visceral chaos of 'Overdraft' sounds like the genesis of Nathan's live performance style which would emerge in the coming years



. Nathan Fake - Outhouse + Watlington Street + The Sky Was Pink ( 498mb)

01 Outhouse (Main mix) 10:51
02 Outhouse (Fluffy mix) 4:36
03 Outhouse (Beaty Tool mix) 5:57

04 Adamedge 9:11
05 Bored of House 9:37
06Underberg 9:09
07 Overdraft 4:00
08 Peary Land 5:56

09 The Sky Was Pink (Original Live Take) 4:49
10 The Sky Was Pink (Icelandic Version) 5:07
11 The Sky Was Pink (Holden Remix) 9:31
12 The Sky Was Pink (Holden Tool) 5:46

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Drowning in a Sea of Love is a record that flows with peculiar beats, enchanting synthesizers, and the occasional hint of shoegaze. The album also sends out heaps of sun-drenched, fuzzy synth bliss in dismal and joyous feelings. Thus, the inevitable result of Fake's basement-style experimentations and raved live performances is his full-length, now calling attention to his full atmospheric capabilities.

With ethereal mouldings, strong percussion and sparkling electronic glitches, Drowning in a Sea of Love is a beautiful mosaic that is fundamentally opposed to dance floors. The record opens with Stops, a playful dream-state. I’m especially glad to hear he hasn’t abandoned his signature breath-beats as in his mesmerizing, Coheed. Along with his beats, the chimes also compose a great deal of the background in Stops, making the shoegaze and sex motifs quite overt. The lullaby-esque arpeggios within Charlie’s House give a sense of near-nostalgia. Led by a straight forward flute sound and dizzyingly lush choirs of synths, the tune is a real wind chill along with handclaps and stereo swirls. A great impression is left from the radiantly soaring tune, Superpositions. Utilizing his signature distorted arena-sized synthesizers, Fake manages to create powerful ocean tides from his dynamic simplicity. Fake’s most successful, loved, and widely known piece is The Sky was Pink. Released previously as a single back in ‘04, the track is a progressive, rustic landscape of drum machines and ever-changing hazy synth work. With its ping-pong intro percussion, Long Sunny contains some more over-processed heavily reverbed synthesizers. Ending the album is a taste of slightly different textures than the rest of the record. Being a fan of the tune myself, Fell is a gorgeous finale of various glistening ice-like synths submerging into each other while glitch beats dancing on top. The beatless song reminds me of literally falling in slow motion. Pure bliss.

Drowning in a Sea of Love is - just like its cover (a typical British suburban neighborhood confined by a flower-sample wallpaper) suggests - a warm, sun-bathed (with occasional glimpses of darkness, see "Falmer"), comforting record. Perhaps one shouldn't read too much into it, but every time I put it on I just feel better about... life, I guess. There's nothing fake about Fake's first full-length LP. It's a cozy, relaxing work whose shortcomings are surprisingly few and whose major strengths are stellar. Give it a try.



Nathan Fake - Drowning in a Sea of Love + Rmxs (flac 461mb)

01 Stops 4:34
02 Grandfathered 3:15
03 Charlie's House 5:29
04 Bumblechord 3:10
05 Superpositions 2:31
06 Bawsey 0:59
07 The Sky Was Pink 4:51
08 You Are Here 4:25
09 Falmer 1:46
10 Long Sunny 5:20
11 Fell 5:47
Rmxs
12 Charlie's House (Apparat remix) 7:49
13 Long Sunny (Vincent Oliver remix) 5:56
14 Long Sunny (Fairmont remix) 6:26
15 You Are Here (FortDax remix) 8:28

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Hard-edged, confident 2009 album from the UK Electronica star. Hard Islands is melodic, musically ambitious and pushes the European Techno blueprint ever forward. The album edges towards the tougher end of Electronica occupied by Warp and Rephlex stalwarts Clark and Aphex Twin, where spine-tingling melody meets Fake's acute awareness of what works on the dancefloor. Castle Rising" starts off (comparatively) sparse before launching into the dense thicket of sound that the other tracks share before veering off into ambient territory, dropping the kick drum altogether, only to have it come pounding back in. The melody on "Basic Mountain" stays constant, until Fake decides to twist it, momentarily, into something unrecognizable, while "Turtle," has tiny pauses, like miniature hiccups in the music. "Narrier" has a more crystalline quality to it, while "Fentiger" ends with a melodic sea, even though it starts off with much more straightforward techno. Well, as straightforward as Nathan Fake gets, which is to say: forward-thinking



Nathan Fake - Hard Islands (flac 308mb)

01 The Turtle 6:20
02 Basic Mountain 6:15
03 Castle Rising 8:59
04 The Curlew 1:17
05 Narrier 3:34
06 Fentiger 6:46

07 Iceni Strings 5:29
08 Sense Head 5:02
09 Bauxite Dream 4:54

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. Nathan Fake - Outhouse Rmxs + You Are Here + Xmas Rush ( 323mb)

01 Outhouse (Marko Nastic Rmx)
02 Outhouse (Valentino Kanzyani Rmx)

03 You Are Here
04 You Are Here (Four Tet remix)
05 You are Here (Live version)
06 Stops (Live remix)
07 Casio Triangle Through A Granular Synth

08 Xmas Rush
09 Mi Cyaan Believe It (Michael Smith Tribute)

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Rho

T. S. said...

Dear Rho:

Yes, the Border Community label is great, and Nathan Fake is so talented! I think that his contributions and humble personality helped James Holden develop his label a lot.

Bored of House's melody is a personal favourite of mine.

T.S.

Malphas said...

Drowning in a Sea of Love album's links are dead