You're so feign

So it’s 1.30am and the place is Crawdaddy, a few weeks back. Nathan Fake is fiddling away on his laptop, churning out a brain-sizzling blend of micro-edited breakbeats and deep, layered electronic atmospherics.

Beside him, a friend is also fiddling away on a laptop – something to do with the visuals.
But that doesn’t really matter. The attention is firmly on Fake (who looks like he could easily join fellow mop-toppers The Kooks without anyone noticing). But all is not quite right in the crowd. Around half of the packed room’s occupants are entranced – but the other half are a bit confused. Is this Nathan Fake? Are you sure? It sounds a bit… different.

Some back story. The 22-year-old Reading native is currently one of the hottest properties in the electronic world, thanks in no small part to a beautiful piece of music he penned called ‘The Sky Was Pink’.
An elegant ambient wander, the track was remixed into something of a big-room monster by James Holden, the boss of the Border Community label. It was a truly genre-defying record – played by everyone from Andy Weatherall to John Digweed, the techno crowd to the trance brigade.
Fake had numerous records out already (and some very good ones at that), but this was the one that saw him move up a league.
And that’s where the confusion comes from. Fans of the Holden remix tend to expect something similar at the live shows, but Fake’s current set owes more to My Bloody Valentine and Sigur Ros than Sasha’n’Diggers. Has the remix become something of a pain in the arse?
“Yeah, people do ask for it at gigs which I find weird. I’m hardly going to be able to play a remix by someone else of one of my songs. But it’s also cool that people like it.”
He began releasing on Holden’s Border Community a few years back “after sending on some demos”. Early tracks included ‘Outhouse’, ‘Overdraft’ and the possibly autobiographical ‘Bored Of House’. These he followed up with last year’s fantastic ‘Dinamo’ on the German Traum label.
All are 4/4 belters. So you can understand the confusion on the dancefloor as Fake churned out track after track of deep electronica from his album, Drowning In A Sea Of Love. What inspired the change in sound?
“I’ve always made non-techno stuff, so it’s not really a change for me,” he ventures. “It’s just that I’ve never had the chance to release the stuff like that before. I started writing it two years ago now. I wrote all the songs in the space of a couple of months then spent a bit of time getting the sound right.”
How have people been reacting to it?
“Pretty well. It’s still quite noisy and intense in places and I still rock out when I play. Also the visuals by my friend Vincent give it an edge too, which really makes the live show something different. Playing at something like I Love Techno (a Belgian event) I’m going to have to be pretty ravey. But it’s cool to play the smaller little venues where I don’t have to worry about satisfying techno fans and shit. The album set isn’t club-based at all. I guess it goes across alright in more open-minded clubs, like in backrooms and that.”
Kudos are due to Holden and Border Community for recognising his talent – and it’s paid off. The album has been bigged-up by everyone from men’s mag Arena to The Observer to your very own Hot Press – an astounding selection of press clippings for such an esoteric record. How did he pull that one off?
“I can be very persuasive!”