Talk Is Cheap - Chet Faker - Single Review

The worst thing about releasing your first album single 48 hours before Valentine’s Day is, quite simply, that you don’t leave enough tine for desperate teenagers to learn the lyrics before confessing their undying love to their lifelong crush.

Well, that is the case, at least, for Chet Faker, known by his mother as Nicholas Murphy and to the world as ‘that dude with the best beard in Australia right now’.

With this, the first official snippet since the announcement of his debut album Built On Glass, Murphy climbs back down the metaphorical ladder of ‘biggest procrastinators in music’ (that spot can now be rightfully handed back to The Avalanches or Neutral Milk Hotel) and perches on a lower, nevertheless still humble shelf to observe the world’s reaction to his debut album.

‘Talk Is Cheap’ begins with a nebulous saxophone melody, which evokes smoky images of Ancient Egyptians summoning entranced cobras out of a reed cage; except this time it is Murphy invoking thousands of hypnotized teens (still frothing at the mouth from Flume & Chet Faker’s Lockjaw EP) out from their slumber and dragged through a hypnotic sprawl of sensuality and dense lyricism.

And so, like in a dream, ‘Talk Is Cheap’ winds its way through a typically beautiful chorus with angelic backing before petering out into smoky and lush slow burner. Although, admittedly not bringing anything of note new to the table, ‘Talk Is Cheap’ is still indestructibly voluptuous and epicurean: the sensually distorted saxophone and non-invasive vocal snippets are seamlessly buried (see: accompanying music video) beneath lush and organic vocals.

So, what are you waiting for? Pick up your saxophone, print these lyrics off the internet and proclaim you love to your crush – it’s Valentines Day, and nobody does love and lust better than Chet Faker.

Built on Glass is out April 11 via FutureClassic.

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