Craven Faults: “The music feels like it’s constantly in flux”

Why did you choose the Nine Standards at Hartley Fell to represent you on the album sleeve?

They look amazing when you go up there. They’re earlier than most cairns – they date from possibly as early as the 14th century, but these that you see today are probably not the same ones, because they’re always being rebuilt. I suppose the music feels like it’s constantly in flux, and that it’s changing gradually. It has an unfinished quality to it, which

I like. So perhaps the closest the music comes to reflecting various landscapes is that idea of slow change over time.

Obviously the modular synth remains your primary tool, but you can hear a few different sounds emerge – the piano on “Idols & Altars” for example.

Yeah, that’s a Yamaha CP-80. I don’t really have any trouble with introducing other instruments, but it’s not like I’m going to plug in a guitar and play a solo because that would be completely out of character. I like to keep it simple in terms of the number of notes – even chords, hardly any. The modular synthesiser is a giant, tuned rhythm machine, and that’s what I like about it; where the notes are is more important than what they are. Every time I bring a snare drum in on something I think, ‘No, I don’t like it. Get rid.’

You’re hoping to tour later this year, so how are you planning to maintain your anonymity?

Well, it’s not going to happen, is it? Maybe I’ll come out with a false beard, nose and glasses! I enjoy the anonymity of it, but it’s not a mystery. There’s no great reveal coming because people will probably go, ‘Who the hell’s that anyway?’ INTERVIEW: SAM RICHARDS