This article originally appeared on i-D DE.
“I’m interested in extremes and contrasts,” says producer Mathias Humlen aka FAKETHIAS, who makes disjointed electronic music that jumps between industrial, hard dance beats and more melodic sounds in the space of just a few minutes. “Sounds paint mental imagery,” he says. “I can’t stay in the same place for too long, and I won’t limit myself to doing one thing. Perhaps my music sounds like a reflection of this?” It does.
Although Norway seems intent on releasing rappers into the world right now, Mathias has found his own niche. “It’s a small country, so it’s easy to get attention if you’re doing something that stands out,” the 24-year-old says. “There’s no actual scene for what I do here.” In fact, it seems that the only reason he started teaching himself production as a teenager was because there was basically nothing else to do in the small town he grew up in. Relatable, huh?
Now based in Oslo, Mathias is one EP deep (he self-released Attune last year) and just put out an intense track under the joyful name 161 reasons to smile more. Reason 1: You’ve discovered an exciting new Scandinavian producer! Reason 2: He’s made us an i-D mix! “It’s a rough and restless compilation of some of the uglier dance music I’m listening to right now,” he told us over email this morning. Kicking off with 90s Swedish metal band Meshuggah, the mix soon ricochets through a nightmare wind tunnel of techno and post-industrial hardcore before settling down for some serious FAKETHIAS action. Sound fun? It is.