Nick Murphy

Australian singer/songwriter Nick Murphy first gained widespread attention for his atmospheric electronic productions issued under the stage name Chet Faker. That alias yielded several EPs plus the 2014 debut album Built on Glass. Returning to his given name, Murphy pursued a more soulful and organic direction on his second full-length, Run Fast Sleep Naked, which appeared in 2019.

Born in Melbourne in 1988, he absorbed his parents’ record collection during childhood and drew early inspiration from the relaxed jazz style of trumpeter/vocalist Chet Baker. To distinguish himself from another musician sharing his birth name, he chose the pseudonym Chet Faker and introduced himself in 2011 with a downtempo reinterpretation of Blackstreet’s “No Diggity.” The track spread rapidly online and opened doors for his career. Further EPs followed, among them 2012’s Thinking Textures and the 2013 collaboration Lockjaw with Flume. Downtown Records then issued Built on Glass in 2014; the album entered the Australian ARIA Charts at number one. Sensing an evolution in his sound, Murphy declared in 2016 that he would retire the Chet Faker identity and continue simply as Nick Murphy, releasing the tracks “Fear Less” and “Stop Me (Stop You)” the same year. The Missing Link EP arrived in 2017 and included the single “Your Time” with Kaytranada. Work on a new album began soon afterward, culminating in the 2019 release of Run Fast Sleep Naked. The shapeshifting set carried a more soulful, at times gospel-inflected character shaped by Murphy’s introspective journeys undertaken alone across multiple countries.