Nathan Fake
| [✉ booking request] | Territory: DE |
Norfolk born and bred heir to the UK electronica throne Nathan Fake has kept fans of fuzzy-edged synths and pounding acidic techno beats alike guessing ever since his debut release at the tender age of 19. And now, having just reached his 29th birthday milestone, he is back with exuberant new album main event 'Steam Days', a breathtaking landmark on Nathan Fake's road to musical maturity which Nathan has rightly branded his “best work to date”, oscillating effortlessly between both ends of the electronic spectrum to reprise both the soothing melodic indulgence and heavy dancefloor assault of his albums of yore. And although a career that has been characterised by such deftly-executed electronic versatility may to the outsider appear chameleonic, schizophrenic even, one thing has remained constant throughout his decade at the electronica coalface: a very real sense of the artist behind the machines, no matter which production hat Fake may currently be sporting.
It was during his upbringing in the rural English county of Norfolk that the first tell-tale signs of Nathan Fake's artistic idiosyncracies began to reveal themselves. When an early course of piano lessons threatened to stall at the abstract first hurdle of learning to read music, the young Nathan instead took on the much more daunting task of memorising by ear with the aim of recalling during practice sessions at home, with considerable – and surprising – levels of success. His induction into the electronic arts would come a little later care of his elder brother's Orbital tape cassettes, their unashamedly euphoric melody lines likewise effortlessly assimilated by Nathan, providing a welcome lead to play along to on his junior Casio keyboard (little did he know that years later he would end up supporting those same Orbital brothers on their 2012 comeback tour!). And to this day, Fake retains an ability to recall, deconstruct and replicate music that is damn near pitch- perfect, which has come to him via this altogether natural and entirely unstudied route.
This enviable raw, innate musical ability was given a cursory polish when Nathan left his sleepy Norfolk village of Necton at the age of 18 to commence an HND in Music Technology at Reading College of Art & Design, although Fake would end up dropping out before graduation when his musical career suddenly took off of its own accord – and in grand style. His debut 12” release - the Boards-of-Canada-do-techno of 'Outhouse' - came care of UK producer-cum-DJ James Holden's Border Community label in 2003 (the fledgling label's second ever release), making serious inroads on the dancefloors of Europe. Following hot on its heels came that inimitable (though far too many have tried!) James Holden remix of Fake's 'The Sky Was Pink', confounding all expectations to notch up 12” sales approaching 20,000 at a time when people were already queueing up to ring the death knell for vinyl. The Nathan Fake name thus found itself stamped all over a bonafide modern dancefloor classic, its soaring fake guitars reaching out into the realm of universal consciousness, somewhat inescapably cementing Fake's club reputation in the process.