Changing the flow

It is hard to believe that, despite all of his successes in the past two years, Chet Faker is yet to release a full-length album.

That all changes tomorrow when the bearded Melburnian, known to his mother as Nicholas Murphy, releases his long-awaited debut, Built on Glass.

Although the soulful-voiced producer began working on the album as soon as his EP Thinking in Textures was released two years ago, he struggled to get it off the ground.

"I wasn't entirely sure how to approach it to be honest because I had never done something so big," Murphy begins.

"Coming into it I was kind of a bit naive, I thought it was going to be a bit easier than it was."

He set up his recording studio in a converted cool room in a heritage-listed North Melbourne meat market building which kept his creativity as fresh as the hanging animal corpses of the room's past life.

"I like changing spaces, it changes my flow and ends up changing the sound," Murphy says, though he didn't take the opportunity to upgrade any of his equipment.

"Your equipment changes the sound just as much as your creativity does, so I was really wary of adding new elements to what I had."

Although he collaborated with fellow internationally acclaimed Aussie electronic artists such as Flume and Perth's Ta-ku in the past year, he kept outside influences to a minimum on Built on Glass.

Apart from a verse from Brooklyn vocalist Kilo Kish on Melt, the mysterious Cleopold offered a guitar solo on Dead Body, fresh from an appearance on the Miami Horror single Colours in the Sky.

"I really didn't want him to be on it, I wanted to do this thing myself but he nailed it," Murphy says.

"We were just hanging out and he's like 'Let me have a go' and he did the best take. I was like 'Damn'."

With an extensive bunch of dates lined up in the northern hemisphere, which kicked off last month at South by Southwest in Texas, Murphy will be spending much of the next year building his audience in the US and Europe.

To facilitate this transient lifestyle he has changed his live show.

Now playing completely solo, the producer believes it is more important to play the way he feels rather than being consistent.

"It's mainly so you're being true to the music," Murphy explains.

"At the moment I've got this electronic set-up, a bunch of loopers, synths, midi controllers and keyboard, so I'm sort of angling at the production side of things."

'Your equipment changes the sound just as much as your creativity does, so I was really wary of adding new elements to what I had.'