Albums and Abominations: Built on Glass [A]

By Benjamin Huber-Rodriguez     4/24/14 2:23pm

Some albums make you think, like the multi-layered dramas penned by The National. Others make you feel, like the heart-wrenching ballads on Arcade Fire’s Funeral.

Some albums make you think, like the multi-layered dramas penned by The National. Others make you feel, like the heart-wrenching ballads on Arcade Fire’s Funeral. Some albums, such as Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City, tell better stories through their songs than most works of modern fiction. The Black Keys’ records are for rocking out, Avicii is for raging, Animal Collective expands your mind. And sometimes a record sports the perfect combination of blended-synth chords, vocals like melted chocolate and a rhythm section so chilled out it turns Frozen into a day at the beach, it gives you the unnerving desire to, well… enjoy the pleasures of intimacy. While these features are nothing new to the world of R&B, Chet Faker’s Built On Glass is such a marvelously consistent record that it stands out as a shining example of everything that’s right with the music world’s current trend of combining all influences toward a budding singularity.

Chet Faker, the pseudonym for Melbourne-based DJ and artist Nick Murphy, first achieved musical success back in 2011, when his jazzy cover of Blackstreet’s ’95 rap classic “No Diggity” reached the top spot on The Hype Machine and received considerable radio play. Since then, Faker has released two EPs and a smattering of remixes, all leading up to his stunning debut LP, Built On Glass. 

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The first single and second track, “Talk is Cheap,” leads with splicing samples and a disjointed backbeat until the synth riff catches and ties the song together. This merges into into Faker’s murky, bubbling vocals rising from the swamps before launching into perhaps the catchiest chorus of the year, where the refrain of  “I want to make you move with confidence, I wanna be with you alone” thoroughly schools any budding seduction artist. As any good lead single should, the track serves as a microcosm of the entire album. It keeps the verses chill, the vocals low, the bass slinky and the drums on the off beat. Then the chorus blooms into a flowerbed of ‘Oohs’ while Faker’s sly tenor reaches the top of its impressive range. 

Other first half tracks “Gold” and “Melt,” the latter of which features a wonderful change of pace by way of guest vocals from R&B up-and-comer Kilo Kish, serve as the record’s bread and butter, possessing both stellar production and raw sensuality. However, it’s on the record’s second side, split by the track “/”, that Built On Glass rises one notch above being another solid R&B record and reaches for lyrical themes beyond sex and the basic haze of lover’s melodrama. In “1998,” Faker advances the song slowly, maintaining a constant pulse as he drifts back and forth to the chorus of “We used to be friends, we used to be in a circle / I don’t understand, what I have become to you.” The line is blunt and honest, and through the sampling and modulations, we hear the human self-doubt and regret present in Faker’s distant vocals. 

The following seven-minute epic of “Cigarettes & Loneliness” serves as the album’s shining centerpiece and most meticulously arranged track, breaking all the ties to traditional pop-music themes as Faker simultaneously surgically dissects his songwriting process while opening up his inner thoughts for the world to read. “Maybe this could be the kind of one, where I sit on the words / Maybe I could be the kind of lonely guy that’ll sing other songs” Faker mumbles over a clean and inquisitive guitar line as the song builds to the record’s emotional climax, when Faker shouts “Love are you done with my tongue? This is love without love, without love, without love!” The juxtaposition of this open, erupting piece of music to the first side’s dark, low-key grooves displays a far more extensive range than the sum of Faker’s influences, from electronica to jazz to soul, and puts Built On Glass alongside this year’s best releases. That every single cut on the album stands as a lesson in making music with just a computer, a keyboard and a bass makes it the strongest record released so far this year.

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