Chet Faker

One Liner: Australian downtempo electronic coolness

Wikipedia Genre: Electronica, downtempo, soul, trip hop
Home: Melbourne

Poster Position: 6
Weekend One Only

Friday at 7pm on the Miller Lite Stage.

Thoughts:  This feels like someone I should already know - the name sounds very familiar - but then I pull up the top track and it doesn't sound familiar at all.  Huh.  Actually, I just dug back in the archives and I reviewed one of his albums years ago.

Chet Faker - Built on Glass.  Aussie electronic guy.  The album opens like Trolley from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood decided to make an electro slow-jam with a crooner.  Austin radio has been pimping "Gold" pretty heavy for a while, and I like it well enough.  Here is "Gold," [2021 update - with 112.1 million streams (and freaking 231 million views of that video on YouTube!)]

That is the finest rolling skating I think I've ever seen.  Although I have no clue what the song has to do with midriff-baring roller skaters, its a good tune.  The rest of the album is similar, chilled out electro with a kind of mumble-y singer over the top.  An R&B-flavored, slo-mo-electro thing.  I've never heard of Kilo Kish, but the collaboration "Melt," is a pretty awesome sultry, breathy slink.  This is interesting music that I could listen to again, but I likely won't keep it.

Well, there you go!  Also, watching that roller skating video again just now - I really like it.  Mesmerizing.  After wandering through the tunes for two days, I actually like this more than I expected.  It's electronic music, but its more chillwave stuff than dance stuff.  Well, some is more upbeat and danceable, but much of it feels like something you would just lay back and relax with.  Seems like the timing of the show is weird - right before the Miley Cyrus party or the George Strait singalong seems like the wrong spot for this music to space out with.

His real name is Nicholas James Murphy, and he's from Melbourne.  The guy got his fame through covering Blackstreet's "No Diggity," which is a pretty ballsy move, but he actually turns it into a downtempo synth groove that is funny but still a jam.  The song was apparently featured in a 2013 Super Bowl commercial for a Beck's beer that I don't recall at all, called Sapphire.  

Terrible commercial.  No wonder I don't recall it.  After a few years, he tried going back to his birth name and released some music without the Chet Faker moniker, as Nick Murphy, but then in 2020 he went back to the Faker name for the first single to this most recent album.

His most recent album is 2021's Hotel Surrender.  Oddly, he starts the whole thing off with about 15 seconds of silence, before a digirido-sounding little beat sneaks its way into a track with some spoken word action. The second track is where the action is - when the beat kicked in on "Low," I absolutely felt that.  Cool groove right there.  Just over 16 million streams.

Not much to it at first, feels like Beck is about to start mumbling about cheeze whiz, and then the beat launches and I feel the absolute need to bob my head.  I've plowed through this album a ton by now, and I really enjoy it.

Yeah, I'd go check this guy out.  I don't feel the need to get up close for King George, so maybe I'd take the time to do Black Pumas, then Faker, then George.  Pretty good night.