Nashville – Even before listening to the music of the Australian artist Chet Faker, I knew he had to be an interesting guy. His debut album, titled Built on Glass, was released on April 15 on Futuristic Classic/Downtown/Opulent Records. The titles of his songs are…unique, to say the least. “Dead Body,” “Cigarettes & Loneliness,” “To Me.” He even has an interlude song simply titled “/” as if he had just randomly tapped a key on the keyboard and decided, “Yup, that’s the name of it. It works.”

However, beneath the eccentricity is a man cleared focused. The “/” for instance is a decided pause in the album, a brief break. It does not even have music playing, as most album interludes tend to do. Instead, it’s a gentleman requesting that you flip to the other side of the record and then stating that you should relax and “drift a little deeper as you listen.”

Chet Faker describes his genre as the following: future beat, electronica, down-tempo, soul, and sex. It seems like a remarkably broad and complex selection of genres to label just one artist, and yet he manages to span all of them. “Release Your Problems,” the opening track on the album, has futuristic sounds reminiscent of what one might here right before something leaps out in a scary movie, followed by Faker’s slow, bluesy voice. The bass overwhelms your senses and lulls you into a musical trance. “Talk is Cheap,” the second song, seems to incorporate the ‘sex’ element that Faker lists himself as being capable of musically presenting. With a sensual beat, Faker sings “I wanna make you move with confidence/I wanna be with you alone.” Those lyrics are second only to Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” in terms of blunt yet casual sexuality.

“No Advice (Airport Version)” opens with a strange, eerie sound that seems to hover over the listener like a dark and ominous cloud. When Chet Faker begins to sing on the track, it calls to mind a choir or a chant. It’s haunting and follows you into the depths of your thoughts. Then you’ve got “Cigarettes & Loneliness,” a song with a beat so erratic that it seems difficult to follow at first. “Dead Body” has a heavy beat that would seem more appropriate in a John Legend song. It makes you want to slow dance with your love despite the depressing content of the song.

The album, as described, seems all over the place – but it’s not. The connecting force between these songs…Faker’s voice. His vocals fit perfectly into every tune and beat, no matter how strange or sensual or futuristic it may be. It’s fascinating how he can mold his voice to fit any and all of these genres and make them work.

Chet Faker is currently on tour in Europe, but he will be hopping across the pond to the United States in May and will be hanging out with Americans until early June. Be sure to check out his album here and his tour dates here to see if he’ll be performing in your area.