Faultline

Faultline is the musical alter ego of producer and artist David Kosten.

Working under the name Faultline, Kosten produced the largely instrumental debut Closer, Colder and the follow up Your Love Means Everything, which featured guest vocals from Coldplay's Chris Martin, The Flaming Lips, & R.E.M's Michael Stipe.

While work is ongoing for his third Faultline project, Kosten has continued to produce albums for other artists, notably gaining recognition with Bat for Lashes (double Mercury Music Prize nominated and Ivor Novello winning Two Suns and Fur and Gold, and 2012 album The Haunted Man), and Everything Everything (Mercury Music Prize and Ivor Novello nominated Man Alive and 2013 album Arc).

Kosten co-produced with Marina Diamandis her third studio album Froot. The album was released internationally on March 16, 2015.

Early years

As a youth, Kosten burst his lung while playing clarinet for the National Youth Orchestra. A London-based art school drop-out, Kosten spent the better part of his twenties in his home studio, teaching himself recording and production techniques and exploring far-flung combinations of sound. Faultline's debut single, "Control", was built around death threats left on Kosten's answering machine. It transpired that the intimidating messages had been left by a singer with whom Kosten had refused a collaboration. Kosten appropriated the messages, applying the threats alongside wayward noise, rhythms and Steve Reich-inspired neo-classical music.

Closer Colder

On his debut album, Closer Colder, released via the Leaf label in 1999, Kosten continued this approach to music making, using samples in place of vocals. Most notably, the album's title track lifted Dennis Hopper's voice from Blue Velvet. Kosten is reported to have obtained permission to use the sample directly from Hopper and David Lynch.

Closer, Colder showcased Kosten's arranging abilities, and this elegant blend of soundscape and avant-garde was met with widespread acclaim:

• The Times 25/9/99 "...an album so supremely modernist that it approaches the classical...Closer, Colder can both stir deep emotion and chill to the bone. The sweetest cello, trumpet and violin resonate against a background of abrasive electronica...emotional and sonic disjunction are rarely as eloquently expressed as this".
• DJ 10/99 "...a quite breathtaking, visionary album that promises to take listeners to places they've never been before....one of the finest experimental albums this year."
• Q 11/99 "...Closer, Colder brims with invention...An accomplished, intriguing, distinctly Lynchian debut."
• Esquire Magazine top 10 album of the year.

Your Love Means Everything

Released three years later, Your Love Means Everything was an instant testament to the fruits of Kosten's ongoing sonic experimentation, as well as his skill at creating an environment in which inspiration strikes his collaborators.

The album, originally released on Rough Trade owner Geoff Travis' Blanco Y Negro imprint in 2002, fell prey to label politics, but re-released by EMI/Capitol in 2004 and awash in spectral electronic melancholy and epic beauty, it did not escape a chorus of high praise:

• “Faultline's heady combination of electronic avant-garde classical/dance is, thematically, about complicated as it sounds but Kosten's vision translates, aurally, as a series of threadbare, hauntingly programmed compositions, each simplistic and engrossing”. – Pitchfork
• "Exquisitely moving" - Mojo
• "Devastating and compelling" - The Sunday Times
• "A must-hear record...12 songs of heart-shattering sadness" – NME

On Your Love Means Everything, the Faultline attitude to 'voices' was inverted, with vocal contributions from Coldplay's Chris Martin, Jacob Golden, the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd, Cannibal Ox and R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe.

Coldplay's Chris Martin hadn't even begun recording A Rush of Blood to the Head when he sang on two Faultline tracks: "Where is My Boy?" and "Your Love Means Everything Part 2".

The Flaming Lips were just outgrowing their cult status when they collaborated on "The Colossal Gray Sunshine". With gentle, hypnotic beats that kaleidoscope into multicoloured, atmospheric sounds, the tone of "Your Love Means Everything" can be summed up with this track. With its cinematic, nightmarish feel, the song serves as the lynchpin of the album, which Rolling Stone called "a masterpiece of widescreen psychedelic soft rock."

R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe collaborated on a cover of "Greenfields", a piece of dark Americana from late-50s folk revivalists The Brothers Four. (Kosten expressed incredulity about recording this, his favourite childhood song, with the R.E.M. singer).

"We Came from Lego Blocks" is a fractured, downbeat lullaby featuring vocals from Vordul Megilah of East Coast underground hip-hop duo Cannibal Ox.

Cult singer/songwriter Joseph Arthur collaborates on a truly eerie cover of The Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses", while "Biting Tongues" features Ras B, a ragga-styled MC from Adrian Sherwood's On U-Sound crew.

Other album tracks like "Your Love Means Everything", "Theme for Half Speed" and "I Only Know Myself" reveal the many degrees of Faultline's ghostly, sublime and orchestral sound.

Third album

Kosten is working on his third Faultline album.

Albums

• Closer Colder (27 September 1999)
  1. "Awake" – 4:52
  2. "Tiny Consumer" – 5:27
  3. "Mute" – 8:51
  4. "Papercut" – 4:03
  5. "Control" – 3:21
  6. "Closer Colder" – 5:40
  7. "Salt" – 4:44
  8. "Partyline Honey" – 5:11
  9. (Untitled) – 6:41
• Your Love Means Everything (10 September 2002)
  1. "Your Love Means Everything" – 3:41
  2. "Where is My Boy?" (featuring Chris Martin) – 5:34
  3. "Sweet Iris" – 3:49
  4. "Bitter Kiss" (featuring Jacob Golden) – 3:23
  5. "Waiting for the Green Light" (featuring Cannibal Ox) – 4:09
  6. "The Colossal Gray Sunshine" (featuring The Flaming Lips) – 2:44
  7. "Clocks" – 4:18
  8. "Theme for Half Speed" – 3:13
  9. "Greenfields" (featuring Michael Stipe) – 3:19
  10. "Lost Broadcast" (featuring Nick McCabe) – 3:38
  11. "I Only Know Myself" – 3:52
  12. "Your Love Means Everything Part 2" (featuring Chris Martin) – 4:03
• Your Love Means Everything (re-issue on Capitol/EMI) (17 May 2004)
  1. "Your Love Means Everything" – 3:41
  2. "Where is My Boy?" (featuring Chris Martin) – 5:34
  3. "We Came from Lego Blocks" (featuring Vordul Megilah) – 2:45
  4. "Theme for Half Speed" – 3:13
  5. "Wild Horses" (featuring Joseph Arthur) – 5:13
  6. "Sweet Iris" – 3:49
  7. "Biting Tongues" (featuring Ras B) – 3:28
  8. "Clocks" – 4:18
  9. "The Colossal Gray Sunshine" (featuring The Flaming Lips) – 2:44
  10. "I Only Know Myself" – 3:52
  11. "Greenfields" (featuring Michael Stipe) – 3:19
  12. "Lost Broadcast" (featuring Nick McCabe) – 3:38
  13. "Your Love Means Everything Part 2" (featuring Chris Martin) – 4:03
  14. "Missing" (Japanese bonus track) – 3:25
  15. "Surfacenothing" (Japanese bonus track) – 5:00

Singles and EPs

• Papercut EP (1998)
  1. "Papercut" – 4:03
  2. "Partyline Honey" (Remix) – 4:45
  3. "Quarantine" – 3:26
  4. "Not Forgotten" – 7:06
• "Mute" single (1999)
  1. "Mute" – 8:52
  2. "Mute" (Third Eye Foundation Remix) – 6:33
  3. "Dislocate" – 2:37
• Faultline EP (2002)
  1. "The Colossal Gray Sunshine" (featuring The Flaming Lips) – 2:44
  2. "Missing" – 3:25
  3. "Surfacenothing" – 5:00
• "Biting Tongues" promo single (May 2004)
  1. "Biting Tongues" (featuring Ras B) – 3:32
  2. "Biting Tongues" (The Bug Mix) – 4:09
  3. "Biting Tongues" (Riton Mix) – 6:17
  4. "Biting Tongues" (Hot Chip Mix) – 7:07
• "Wild Horses"/"Biting Tongues" double A-side single (10 May 2004)
  1. "Wild Horses" (featuring Joseph Arthur) – 5:13
  2. "Biting Tongues" (featuring Ras B) – 3:32
  3. "Biting Tongues" (Riton Mix) – 6:17
  4. "Wild Horses" (enhanced video)
  5. "Biting Tongues" (enhanced video)
• "The Colossal Gray Sunshine" promo single (August 2004)
  1. "The Colossal Gray Sunshine" (featuring The Flaming Lips) (remix) – 2:47
• "Send In The Clowns" single (2017)
  1. "Send In The Clowns" featuring Lisa Hannigan on vocal for an Audi car TV commercial - 4.51