Rasmus Faber is a musician of many lives. Producer, composer, arranger, pianist—his career resists a single definition. In Japan, he is widely recognized for the “Platina Jazz” series, where beloved anime songs are transformed into elegant jazz interpretations, as well as for his work scoring numerous anime productions.
Yet his story begins not in concert halls or recording studios for animation, but on the dancefloor. In the early 2000s house music scene, his melodic, romantic, and meticulously crafted tracks caught the ears of DJs like Kenny Dope, Louie Vega, and TOWA TEI, earning him a sudden and lasting presence in clubs around the world.
As his music later expanded into neo-classical, jazz, anime, and game soundtracks, the sensibility of a house producer never disappeared—it simply flowed beneath the surface, shaping everything he touched.
In 2025, that current rose back into full view. With a run of vivid, romantic house releases that echo his early work, Faber stepped once more into the scene that first defined him—a homecoming long hoped for by those who have danced to his music since the early 2000s.
We spoke with Rasmus at his home just before the Christmas holidays, focusing on his identity as a house music creator. Even through a computer screen, his calm, gentlemanly warmth was unmistakable.
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Born in Sweden, Rasmus Faber is a producer, DJ, and multi-keyboardist whose music moves freely between worlds. Raised by a celebrated jazz musician, he began playing piano in early childhood and entered the music scene as a jazz pianist, grounding his artistry in harmony, touch, and improvisation.
His path soon led him to house music, where his debut single “Never Felt So Fly” and the enduring favorite “Ever After” earned him global acclaim. With their elegance, melody, and emotional warmth, these tracks established Faber as a distinctive voice on dancefloors worldwide.
In Japan, albums such as “So Far” and “Where We Belong” expanded his audience beyond the house scene, while his rare position as a foreign composer working in anime music further set him apart. His “Platina Jazz” series—reimagining iconic Japanese anime songs through a jazz lens—has become a defining project, highlighting his ability to bridge cultures and genres.
Blending jazz sophistication, club sensibility, and a deep connection to Japanese pop culture, Rasmus Faber stands as a singular presence in contemporary music, guided less by genre than by curiosity and craft.
A Full Circle Back to House Music
You’ve put out a lot of releases in 2025.
Rasmus: To be honest, sometime around 2024 I started to feel a much stronger pull back toward house music again. The tracks I’ve been releasing were actually ideas I’d been sitting on for several years, but back then it didn’t feel like the right moment to put them out. My interests were pointing in other directions, and the house scene at the time didn’t quite align with the sound I personally wanted to make.
Rasmus: But finally, it felt like everything came together. After a long stretch of time, a kind of big “cycle” completed itself and brought me back to where I started. I think you could say it was a return that happened at an extremely natural moment.
The tracks you’re releasing this time also feel different from your 2019 album “Two Left Feet,” and closer to the sound of your early work. Was that a conscious decision?
Rasmus: Exactly. “Two Left Feet” occupies a slightly unusual place in my catalog. During the 2010s, there was a global EDM boom, and I was DJing in a more festival-oriented style as a result. But somewhere deep down, I always felt a sense of discomfort—like, “This isn’t really where I belong.” At the same time, I never felt any desire to simply conform to the EDM scene either.
Rasmus: That’s exactly why, when the EDM boom started to fade, I decided to make a mellow, restrained album as my own kind of “countermove.” Against a high-energy, highly electronic EDM scene, I deliberately chose slower tempos and a more organic, live-feeling sound. That act of personal resistance is what eventually became “Two Left Feet.”
So during the height of EDM’s popularity, you were feeling a certain sense of constraint?
Rasmus: I felt that a global EDM boom was, in itself, a natural development—but resisting it was far from easy.
The club scene shifted toward a festival-driven model, and EDM ended up stripping away many of the things I had always valued: live instrumentation, and influences drawn from jazz, Latin music, and other genres. I don’t think I was the only one—there were probably many musicians who felt the same kind of restriction at the time.
