What is most striking about The Fake Live EP, recorded in the late Summer of 2020 just before lockdown in Klub Buda, Kraków, is how it doesn’t actually sound like a typical live recording. There are various thoughts on the merits of live albums and I sit somewhere on the fence. There are renowned live albums that have struck me hard the first time I listened to them, I think of Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps, Queen’s Live Killers, Rush’s Exit Stage Left… That said, there’s a raw immediacy to live music that recording can deaden, smoothen out; extracting, in the process, most of the “live” out of it until you are left with a shallow tinny mess that sounds “live”, but not in the positive sense. This may seem like I am about to embark on a tirade against The Fake’s live endeavours, but, in fact, these songs have really piqued my curiosity; it’s a fine recording of a captivating live performance by the band. I tip my hat to the sound engineer on duty that evening – Konrad Mosoń.
Honing their trade since 2014 and amassing a dedicated follow in the process, The Fake are a multi-kulti encapsulation of modern-day central Europe, with members hailing from Norway, Turkey and Poland. The original line up is Anil Dursun (bass, vocals); Nicolai Stensland Szewczyk (guitar, vocals); Wojciech Rutkowski (drums). Recently they’ve been rather busy, releasing an EP The Fake EP in September 2018, and later their first full length offering – The Fake Album – released by The New Thing Records on the cusp of the pandemic in February 2020. It was all recorded, mixed and mastered by Szewczyk. That unusual year offered the band a chance to reformulate and refocus; the welcome addition of keyboardist, Dominik Durejko, sees them explore more diverse and psychedelic soundscapes for their live shows.
The Fake are a multi-kulti encapsulation of modern-day central Europe, with members hailing from Norway, Turkey and Poland.
© All photos by Adelina Krupski Photography for Kraków Music
Live EP at Klub Buda in Kraków. August 2020
The song [Waiting] sees the band relax into their stride with a hectic opening that moulds itself into stoner free-style sonic meandering, before a bridge dizzyingly explodes out of nowhere and we are back where we started again. It’s great fun and, more importantly, you know the band are loving playing it just as much as the listener listening.
The opening track, Breathe, was released as a single 2 years previous to this live performance. It’s really intriguing to see how a song can develop and mature over time, building character and expressiveness. Here it has so much more swagger than the studio recorded version, the angrier fuzz bass, the live keys filling out the sonic spaces, tasteful bursts of wah-wah guitar and a nice reverbie-spacey effect on the vocal suiting the dreamy mood. It’s a fine opener with the band channelling their inner Zoroastrian spirit, with the lead vocal chanting “I’ve got Fire, I’ve got Water, I’ve got Earth, I’ve got the Elements within me”. They leave the carcass of the original recording on a mountain in Iran for the vultures to pick at.
Medicine is the second song from their first full length LP. The lyrics echo the cycle of restraint and relapse than many of us have to contend with in life, occasionally surrounding ourselves with people or things that may not always be the best for us in the long run. Yes, it’s often hard to severe the umbilical chord of dependency – “But sometimes I break down, and I need my medicine, I keep falling down, give me my medicine”. Live, it’s slightly faster and more uptempo than the original and I would have pushed the muddy vocals higher in the mix here, but, that said, it’s still a stomping, infectious slice of psychedelic-pop with some lovely backing vocals floating above the ether of the band’s groove.
The filthy, bluesy grind of She Floats is smothered in Szewczyk’s tasty Cream-era Clapton guitar licks, sublime yet fleeting synth fills, with vocals reminiscent of a tantalising blend of Dave Gilmore and Jonathan Donahue (Mercury Rev), to take nothing away from Szewczyk’s vocal skills and ability to carve his own niche. The stifling claustrophobia of expectation and obligation tears away at the protagonist “I can see her everywhere I go….she is my destiny I’m told, I’ll only regret it when I am old” – the perfect lyrical foil for the luscious melodies of the chorus where it constructs a world made of candy-floss and chocolate. The malevolence of the dark lyrics seethe underneath the saccharine veneer.
New instrumental number, Waiting, has some great pulsing, diaphragm-shattering bass, while the lead guitar and Rutkowski’s pounding drums combine for an all-out assault on the listener, reminding me of Hendrix’s Let Me Stand Next to your Fire. The song sees the band relax into their stride with a hectic opening that moulds itself into stoner free-style sonic meandering, before a bridge dizzyingly explodes out of nowhere and we are back where we started again. It’s great fun and, more importantly, you know the band are loving playing it just as much as the listener listening.
The Fake have their musicianship chops proudly on display, as well as the rumbling discontent and unapologetic angst of rock, but there’s always room to grow – classical and jazz influences could also playfully coexist within this genre, there’s space for odd instrumentation to come to the fore, and, with a little conjuring, they may even invoke what Robert Fripp calls “the presence of the Good Fairy”. Closing new number, Zeus, haemorrhaging with unnerving zeitgeist, sees the keys take centre stage during the intro. The slow build is violently shattered when the band rip open the heavy Kraków summer sky with a meat-cleaver and summon thunder to a challenge. The chorus’s ominous and spectral vocal refrain “He’s our god, we follow Zeus…almighty god, a gruesome god”, is a real highlight, yet it unsettles me in its apocalyptic yet disquietingly reassuring tone which taunts: resign yourself to your fate. Our apathy empowers our masters as they continue to make “gold from our frustration”. It’s a chilling critique of a society approaching a post-covid impasse, where the new world that awaits may just be as strange and unsettling as the reality we were plunged into, without warning, 15 months ago. Irrespective, live music with a live audience will and must return to our lives for we desperately need it. I sincerely hope The Fake will come back to Kraków this summer to celebrate the release of this record. The Fake Live EP has made me realise how much I have missed live music – I’ll be sure not to miss them if they do.
Comments
[…] Nicolai: Well man, there are a number of songs I’m really happy about, I guess it’s hard to pick one. I guess recently “Zeus” is one of the songs I’m most happy with, starting out with The Fake’s bassist, Anil Dursun, playing a random riff and gently shaping itself into a song about, well I’m not gonna say what it’s about, I’d like to hear what people think. It plays well live, people have responded very positively to it. A studio version will come out sooner or later, but for now there’ll be a live version on The Fake Live EP. […]