Nathan Fake @ ICA, London (photo: Alberto Pezzali for Live4ever Media)
Ninja Tune’s latest signing Nathan Fake is arguably the label’s most electronic –orientated member of their stable. There’s very little in his sound which hasn’t been synthetically produced, as opposed to the fusion of live musicianship and sample-based grooves that they’re better known for.
However, you can see why the label’s founders, dance music pioneers Coldcut, have seized on his talents among the myriad of other acts currently operating in similar musical waters. Like themselves, he seems utterly freed up from the restrictions and obsessions of dance music sub-genres. Is it techno, house, downbeat or leftfield? No, not really any of those, but at the same time a bit of them all. Listening to his hour long set tonight, it really doesn’t matter.
With some stunning visuals behind him on the ICA’s big screen as accompaniment, the producer from Norfolk takes to the stage alone and remains a shadowy figure busy manipulating his banks of equipment rather than showing off to the crowd. He’s here to preview his ‘Providence’ album, shortly to emerge on Ninja, and on tonight’s evidence, it’s a real corker.
It’s the kind of music that sounds complex on the surface, but once you give yourself over to it it’s hard to resist its twisting, turning melodies, its hazy harmonics and a genuine sense of drama and emotion. Where most of his contemporaries like to pick a rough area of tempo and concentrate on it, Nathan’s approach is to turn such logic on its head. At times the beats are fast and frenetic, sort of like Plaid’s early proto-jungle recordings re-routed through the dry harshness of ‘Eskimo’-period Wiley. At others, there’s a simple techno heartbeat pulsing away but much slower than any purist of that genre could ever get with.
The capacity audience takes a while to adjust to this unheard material, it’s true, at first swaying, seemingly lost in the music rather than dancing. But given time to work its spell his music is eventually greeted with plenty of cheers, usually at moments where a track reaches a euphoric climax rather than the more conventional end of a song.
After an hour he’s off – no time for the pantomime farce of an encore. There’s no doubt he’s already staking a serious claim to being one of this year’s key live electronic acts. We’d suggest you catch him soon and make up your own mind.