2009 is shaping up to be a vintage year for silly album titles. First there was Junior Boys' Begone Dull Care, then came Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we bring you Hard Islands.
Hard Islands might sound like the title of a crypto-homosexual Sky 3 reality show presented by Steve McFadden or whoever, but it's actually the name of the new album from Nathan Fake. The follow-up to his 2006 debut Drowning In A Sea of Love (not so hot at this titling business, is he?), Hard Islands will be released on James Holden's Border Community label on May 18th.
Still only 21 years of age, Nathan shot to fame while still his in his teens, thanks to a run of exuberantly trancey singles - 'Outhouse', 'Adamedge' and 'The Sky Was Pink' (remixed by Holden into arguable one of the best dance tunes ever) - and then his disarmingly downbeat album, which found him dropping the driving 4x4 rhythms in favour of a more shoegazy, pastoral electronica and post-rock sound. It was OK, but we'd been hoping for something...more.
Hard Islands finds the big-haired youngster reconnecting with the dancefloor, with his debt to the 90s output of Warp and Rephlex more pronounced than ever before. It's a tougher, more techno-oriented affair, recalling his wonderfully tricksy 2005 EP for Traum, Dinamo. This shift back to a more robust, club-friendly style doubtless has as a lot to do with location: Drowning in A Sea of Love was put together in his family home in the Norfolk village of Necton, but now he's London-based, working out of a home studio in Hackney.
Source:
FactMagazine - Nathan Fake sets sail for Hard Islands
