NATHAN FAKE
Plan B, Brixton | 28 February
Nathan Fake’s had it tough since The Sky Was Pink stunned techno lovers nine years ago, poor lad. That seminal release, if not its James Holden remix, made it onto any sensible DJ’s 2004 top ten.
Ever since though, the tune has cast a long, rose-tinted shadow over the 30-year-old’s perfectly respectable career. Those oversaturated analogue synths haven’t disappointed as such; they’ve just never again sounded quite so heart-wrenchingly memorable.
Maybe it’s because Fake has always clung to a similar formula. On Wednesday evening at Brixton’s Plan B, nearly every tune had a predictable trajectory, one that reached back as far as his Drowning In A Sea Of Love debut: several fuzzy melodies in counterpoint, styled on Boards of Canada or Aphex Twin, and slowly crushed under the weight of distortion and detuning, or warped by a wah-wah of side chain compression.
It was the spasmodic beats of 2010’s Hard Islands and 2012’s Steam Days, from breaks and shuffling snare-driven techno to 140bpm, that provided the interest. Plan B’s impressive Function 1 system didn’t hurt either. Old Light had a sentimental, bell-like hook over breaksy rhythms, and the slightly cloying acidic arpeggio of Iceni Strings was rescued through clever placement of glitch gestures.
Cascade Airways was Fake at his finest: a true synth virtuouso, offering an ascending melody so intricately that it would have defied even Robert Moog himself.
Fake’s knack for seamlessly blending tracks created an enjoyable rolling momentum, particularly when the familiarity of 2010’s The Turtle and 2006’s Bumblechord began to materialise. But across an hour’s duration, the set became too relentless, too devoid of space and overloaded with those same-old-same-old lead washes. The lack of interplay between leads / pads and beat was also a flaw. And why didn’t he play Outhouse, another of his unforgettable early releases?
Anyway, those committed enough to stick around after their Pink fix were rewarded with a piece of new material. It got the crowd moving but suggested again that Fake was sticking to his tested formula. It’s not broken altogether and it’s decent enough to keep the guy in work. Yet like this, Fake can’t expect to tingle spines as pervasively as he did back in 2004. We’ve all moved on.
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Words: Nick Johnstone
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