A Love for Strangers

On his second album since returning to his storied Chet Faker moniker, Melbourne’s Nick Murphy expands beyond rumpled R&B and bedroom soul for a musically rounded meditation on heartache. The lingering weight of the past is a recurring theme on <i>A Love for Strangers</i>, with both “Over You” and the strings-sampling “Remember Me” mentioning memories that are either lost or still painfully present. The former track ranks among Murphy’s most pop-friendly creations, applying radiant keyboards and sticky breakbeats before he hits a high falsetto for the resigned message of the chorus: “I was gettin’ over you.” Murphy’s layered self-production includes snatches of sax and birdcall on “1000 Ways”, which pairs romantic pleading with upbeat musical motifs. He does set aside that perky percussion for a couple of stirring piano ballads, and the ghostly centrepiece “Inefficient Love” is stripped back to acoustic guitar. Ever since his first work as Chet Faker in the early 2010s, Murphy has imparted a close, confiding tone that makes this batch of lovesick laments feel all the more affecting. He also brandishes tidy hooks that feel at once familiar and fresh, like the late-’90s piano loop leading the more sultry and optimistic “This Time for Real”.