Chet Faker

Australian singer and songwriter Nick Murphy produces atmospheric electronic music both under his given name and as Chet Faker. He first drew notice through a haunting trip-hop reinterpretation of Blackstreet’s “No Diggity,” which he uploaded to the Internet in 2011 after adopting the Faker alias to distinguish himself from another Australian vocalist. Several further singles followed under the pseudonym, among them charting collaborations with Flume and Kilo Kish, before his sensual and restrained debut album, Built on Glass, appeared in 2014. The record reached the top of the Australian ARIA Charts and earned platinum certification at home.

Murphy returned to his birth name for a more soulful and organic second album, 2019’s Run Fast Sleep Naked, yet revived the Chet Faker project with the 2021 release Hotel Surrender, which peaked at number 19 in Australia. That December he also introduced his band Nick Murphy & the Program via Take in the Roses.

His early listening drew from his father’s chillout compilations and vocal recordings by jazz singer Chet Baker. After the “No Diggity” cover went viral, he issued the debut EP Thinking in Textures on the Opulent label in 2012. The following year he teamed with fellow Australian Flume for the Lockjaw EP on Future Classic, and in 2014 Downtown Records co-released Built on Glass. Late in 2015 his own Detail Records put out the Work EP, recorded with English DJ Marcus Marr.

Sensing an evolution in his style, Murphy announced in 2016 that he was retiring the Chet Faker moniker and would henceforth record simply as Nick Murphy; that year he issued the tracks “Fear Less” and “Stop Me (Stop You).” The Missing Link EP arrived in 2017, highlighted by the single “Your Time” featuring Kaytranada. Run Fast Sleep Naked reflected a shape-shifting, gospel-inflected energy born from introspective solo travels. In 2020 he released the ambient album Music for Silence along with three limited-run cassette EPs of experimental material.

October 2020 saw him reactivate the Chet Faker social-media accounts and unveil “Low,” his first release under that name in five years. “Get High” and “Whatever Tomorrow” appeared in the first half of 2021, preceding Hotel Surrender in July. He began 2022 with the Chet Faker single “It Could Be Nice,” supported on Take in the Roses by producer and multi-instrumentalist Dave Harrington.