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Chet Faker Can Make You Bend

Words by Luke Bodley

Chet Faker is back with Bend, a last minute off-cut from his award-winning 2014 album Built on Glass. The song has moments when it is bundled up and muscular, and others when it is diffuse and watery. As expected, Faker’s voice lilts in its sleepy but coarse way, in a kind of soft-sandpaper drawl. As a sonic foil to his vocals, a tense synth heaves the song forward. The end is this layer upon layer collation of fractured vocal samples, wide electronic pulses and neat off-centre beats.

Faker’s music (and Bend, of course) has a powerful way of capturing the sonic underbelly of Melbourne, of giving a musical shape to the urbane, the grungy and the eclectic. This song, in particular, is a mangled sound sculpture not too dissimilar to the weird permutations of Aussie modern culture. I see images of multicolour graffiti paintings danced about by beanie wearing beards, of semi-lit dens containing Health Goth enthusiasts, and of barely functioning trains packed with tracksuited screamers. Thanks Faker and thanks Australia.

Chet Faker has also announced a string of national tour dates later this year – full details right here.