Fairfax by Nate Scheible

Nate Scheible's "work of gentle genius" – Fairfax – is arriving on vinyl & all digital services in February 2022. Remastered by Lawrence English and featuring brand new artwork, this edition uncovers a completely new side of the "dreamy and dramatic, meditative and somber" album by the American artist.

~~~

"Few albums have stuck with me like Nate Scheible’s Fairfax. In fact, I feel lucky to have had my copy of the original tape to drop into over several years, some heartbreaks, a few streaks of loneliness; when I’ve not felt terribly well, or couldn’t face reflecting for fear of noticing personal decay.

With fresh treatment from mastering maestro, Lawrence English, this new version has brought out fresh new colours in Scheible’s elegant composition. The moments of icy isolation are sharper, while the embrace of the album’s finale is warmer and heartier than ever. Scheible’s found polaroids on the front of the package also fit so aptly that they barely even feel new. The album’s allure and message of craving is more powerful than ever.

To anybody who hears this album, she’s a great heroine of literature, the voice of Fairfax. Her frank admissions of longing and weakness are infectious cries of hope. She’s a powerful woman, unashamed, the innermost voice of reason, grasping the world together selflessly. I wanted to tell her about the times when things weren’t so good. I want to tell her now too, just how well things can turn out.

Scheible’s beds of oozing and luscious melodies, decaying on reels or tape, flinging out from plucked bass strings, or rising from a struck vibraphone, are a truly loving soundtrack to this mysterious voice found on a tape that came into the artist’s possession. The audio letters reveal the woman’s story of painful hope and self-gifted redemption, while the click of the saxophone and moan of Scheible’s wobbly piano snippets, they sing her – no ~our~ – mood right back to us. Fairfax reminds us that, like the protagonist, we’re all gonna do something, ~someday~."
– Tristan Bath

~~~

"It's a stunningly emotional, eventually redemptive suite that will cleave itself around your own ongoing heartbreaks and loneliness, like a warm embrace, like the tightest hug." - The Wire 456, Neil Kulkarni

"Fairfax attains the weight of tragedy, of an epic, and remains a testament to the human spirit that’s impossible to resist, an album that crafts a story bereft of sentiment but a story that’s overflowing with heart and hope. A story that is so needed right now, a story that arms the soul. An essential, miraculous release." – The Quietus, Reissue of the week

"The music on Fairfax is dreamy and dramatic, meditative and somber, subtly echoing the emotions of its found words." - Bandcamp Daily

"Fairfax is a work of gentle genius... Scheible's woozy pallette of tape-manipulations and decaying loops is augmented by his own wordless singing and keys, not to mention various guest instrumentalists adding dabs of vibraphone, euphonium, sax, and double bass." - The Quietus / Spool's Out

"It makes me feel in high school again. It makes me feel like beginning in love. Should I kiss her? Where am I?" - Tiny Mix Tapes

"Certain moments on Nate Scheible’s incredible Fairfax may float sonically with a gossamer effervescence, but emotionally they hit like a ton of bricks." – Foxy Digitalis

“There’s a quiet modesty to his music, and he communicates a genuine sense of empathy, not just for the woman on the tape, but for anyone with an aching heart who happens to be listening. Few releases are this powerful.” – First Floor

"An ambient/experimental tape that feels plucked from David Lynch’s brain, both sonically and thematically." - Washington City Paper

Process.