Nathan Fake interview – “In the distant future, music styles will get more and more merged”
We chat with Nathan Fake ahead of the release of his new LP Crystal Vision
Hello Nathan Fake! We’d would like to start this interview by asking some questions about your upcoming album, Crystal Vision. What strikes us is, apart from the really forward-thinking sound and an impressive work on the mixing and mastering, is the amount of influences you can hear in it. The work is cohesive and has a recognisable Nathan Fake sound, but there are different directions that you take throughout the record. When did you produce the tracks? Was it a brief period or did it come together after a longer time?
It was quite a brief thing really. My last album, Blizzards, was released in 2020. After that, I wasn’t touring at all because of the pandemic, so I just started making new tracks straight away. It ended up being basically ready within a couple of months, I wrote all of the tracks around the same time. That’s probably the first time I’ve ever done that, making an album so quickly. Maybe ‘Providence’ was done in a similarly short time, but this still was a lot more concentrated because I was just not touring at all.
I’m wondering, then, how did you approach every single track? It’s kind of surprising to me that you made it in such a brief period – it seems that you took inspiration from different styles for this record. Did you just approach every track very differently? Or was there a plan in producing this?
I mean, it’s quite esoteric really. It’s hard to answer questions like this one because during the process you kind of just do it and you don’t really think about what you are doing means.
Just to make an example, I can definitely feel some italo-disco influence in the bassline of ‘Vimana’. Or the jungle influence in the ‘Amen 96’ track which is quite evident, starting from the title to the tracks elements. What was the starting point of this track, for instance?
Yeah, obviously with Amen 96 the influence was very straight-foward… It was just like: “oh, I’m gonna make a jungle track”. With a lot of tracks, I just start like that and make stuff for having a laugh really – I try making different genres quite a lot, and sometimes I’ll just make stuff for fun outside of my usual bracket of abilities. Other times it’s more of a minor influence like the Italo one in ‘Vimana’. I made something a bit slower with a more chugging baseline. And I was like “oh, this is sort of works”. And from there I tried to make it nicer. With Amen 96 it was all-in. I thought “I’m gonna have a go with Amen breaks, and I’ll just see how that goes”. It still sounds like me, for instance in the main synth melody, but obviously you have the Amen break which is not me. I have that approach with a lot of things that I do.
The result comes across as quite creative in the end, for example with that track, I felt like you can think you know what to expect from the name. But then it goes quite beyond it at the same level, it ends up not sounding much like a jungle track really. I think that was very interesting to me about this record in general – the tracks can hint at specific genres pretty clearly, but it’s never exactly that specific genre in the end.
The thing for me was always going in a different direction every time. The first thing that always leads the process are the drums. Like it was in Amen 96.
So you always start with composing the rhythm?
Most of the time, yes I do. I mean, from time to time I’ll get an idea for a track that might start from a melody, playing keyboard. But when I actually sit down to start a new track, I always do the drums first, because I use the drums as like the foundation, and then I build things on top of that. Whereas I find that if I have something and then try and put drums under that, the drums then aren’t as solid.
In general in electronic music nowadays you find quite a lot of referrals to previously produced music and established genres. But at the same time, as you show in this record, producers can be really creative with that. So I’m wondering, where do you see electronic music personally, let’s say in five years? And what about in the distant future?
In five years, I think it will probably not be so much different than it is now. What I feel at the moment is a kind of IDM sound coming back. Because a younger generation is discovering late 90s, early 2000s electronic music, sort of like Autechre, Aphex Twin, and others of the genre. I’ve been around long enough now to see that stuff be cool, and then not cool. And now it’s cool again. It’s like with a lot of the early 90s stuff, which came back about 10 years ago. Around 2010 a lot of people started making jungle again, or started using breakbeats elements, which were characteristics of the early 90s stuff.
There’s that twenty years cooling off period. I guess that’s the time for an entirely new generation to discover a sound, 18 or 20 year olds eventually dig deep enough into past music and can get inspired by a whole movement. But it’s funny to me, because the 90s was the last period where there were really new kinds of music appearing. So I think in the distant future, everything will get more and more grey. Music styles will get more and more mixed and merged. If you look back at the 90s, everything was really separated into scenes. I’m talking about the UK but I am quite sure it was the same in the rest of the world, or at least in Europe and America. There was techno, house, drum and bass, each one of them very divided into its own scene. If you compare things now to 20 years ago, that doesn’t exist anymore. And we’ll just carry on more with more merging. There will be a sort of mishmash of everything that’s ever existed. I actually feel that’s kind of how things are getting close to now.
Yeah, I feel that actually I was about to say we’re already kind of getting there already. We still tend to divide music into sub-genres and scenes, but it’s more and more merged with every year. Going back to your album, there is something else I was wondering about in terms of the studio that you used for this album. I imagine it was all produced in the same studio since you were not touring during the production?
Yeah. I mean, I have my home studio and I’ve lived here for a long time.
Could you give us an idea of your setup? What type of gear did you use mostly for this record?
This album was made using a core of Cubase, which I still use to this day, together with Ableton as a sort of central workstation. A lot of the drums and the synths are made using a Roland SH09 and an MC202. I build drum sounds using them, record hits and make sort of custom kits out of those. I also use a Yamaha DX 200 a lot… Then I’ve got a Korg Prophecy, I used that a lot on Providence and a bit more on the new record too. Ah, and also this little Yamaha CS Reface, a kind of little mini keyboard. So yeah, lots of little bits and pieces sort of here and there really. It’s a bit of a mishmash.
And would you say you’re heavy on how you manage the samples afterwards? Or is it more one-takes?
I do tend to record live jams. A couple of tracks from the album or laid out in a sort of linear, you know, DAW way. But mostly there are live recordings that I quite heavily edit afterwards. Nothing is really like a full live take. Specifically in this record, ‘Crystal Vision’ is sort of a live session because it’s just kind of a loop from which the track builds up. But for instance, ‘The Grass’ and ‘Vimana’ were intensively arranged tracks. ‘Boss Call’ is quite live, there are different sections that are recorded, and then edited.
It’s interesting to hear that about ‘Boss Call’. With that track particularly I felt quite a lot of complexity in it. The loops change constantly throughout the track.
Yeah I mean, for the individual sections I was kind of letting them roll out. Then I just made it into an edited and finalized version. I have to say it was a pretty fun process.
What about the last track of the record, a collaboration with Clark called ‘Outsider’. I know you remixed his music in the past, he remixed yours, but this is the first time you collaborated right?
That’s correct!
How did that come across? You had known him for quite a long time now, I guess.
Yes! It’s kind of funny, because I have been a big fan of his since his first album. Like… A massive fan. And then, I randomly did a gig with him once, around 2008, 2007 or so. From that point, we developed a friendship. And then yeah, as you mentioned, I remixed a track of his, ‘Growls Garden’. That was back in 2009, and after that he remixed my track ‘Fentiger’. Now we are just good friends basically. We talked about collaborating for a while and we finally made it happen.
Did he come to your studio? Or was it a distance collaboration?
We’ve been sending each other material online. Because he lives between the UK and Australia so he’s not always around. I see him now and then, usually when he’s in the UK. For the track I made like the main synth riff that comes in at the start, and produced most of the track really. He added his touch playing the keyboard throughout the middle. It’s nice to have made a collaboration with him.
The result is great and it definitely suits the album’s ending. And what about Wizard Apprentice? You have a feature with them on the first single ‘The Grass’. How did that collaboration come across?
I know her music through a friend in Norwich, where I live. She’s from the US actually, from Oakland. But she releases on this record label called Ratskin Records. I bought a couple of her EPs on Bandcamp, and I was just really into it. I then messaged her on Instagram and checked if she wanted to collaborate. I don’t think she knew who I was, which I actually really liked. You know, I sort of quite liked the approach – let’s just do it.
Maybe it’s a little bit more natural than with someone that knows your work well!
Exactly. She is coming from a different scene. But I thought our styles are similar, because her stuff has a lot of sort of very synthy melodies and raw synth patterns. In a way really similar to my music, I think. I thought there was a common ground in our music, and she was into the idea. So yeah, I just sent her some stems from a track I had sort of already started, and I wanted some vocals on it. I was really happy that she actually wanted to do it. Again, we just sort of did it quite quickly. She just sent back some vocals and it worked out perfectly.
Do you see yourself doing more collaborations in the future?
Yeah I really enjoyed doing that, it adds a new dimension. I’m so used to hearing my music just by myself, you know. I’ve done a few collaborations in the past, but for instance, Blizzards had none. So it’s nice to have a couple of collaborations on this one, it sorts of adds a new energy to the music.
Yeah and at the same time they sound very cohesive with your sound and the record as a whole. Are you planning a live tour with the record?
Yes. There will be an audio visual live show. I’m doing visuals with my friend Dominic, who’s also done the album artwork (which I haven’t premiered yet). There’ll obviously be tracks from Crystal Vision, but I always keep a few old tracks in my sets as well. So yeah, it should be something like half Crystal Vision ones, and the other half older stuff.
That makes sense. I mean, it must be nice to play the new material but a mix can always be interesting.
It’s always fun to write. I mean, I’m lucky enough to have been doing this for like 20 years now. So I’ve got a bunch of old stuff that I can say is good.
Thank you so much for your time Nathan and all the best for the album release. Is there anything you want to add to the interview for the readers? What can people expect next from you?
Look out for the album and there’ll be some releases coming out shortly after that as well. It will be sort of a different style once again. So yeah, that’s all I can say at the moment. Thank you!
Giovanni Bodrato