Frieder Nagel - Distract Robots. Vinyl EP. Bleep.

Frieder Nagel invites his listeners to get lost in a universe that spans from euphoric to devastating excitement. He is known for managing projects in venues ranging from theatres to clubs, for concerts to audio-visual experiments - working with artists like David August, La Boum Fatale and Daniel Brandt (Brandt Brauer Frick). The first time he appeared on stage, in 2016 at Berlin's infamous Radialsystem V, armed with several synthesizers, effects, drum machines, one grand piano; and backed by the German Symphony Orchestra (DSO). This critically acclaimed debut was streamed by Boiler Room later and led to further collaborations with Philharmonie Essen or his ensemble show at Reeperbahn Festival.

Now finally Nagel ´s first solo work “Distract Robots” will be released by French label InFine´. This 12" has become an album in miniature with a final polish by mastering guru Zino Mikorey – known for his work for Nils Frahm ´s All Melody. This EP offers up a mystical world, full of warm synths and detailed sound clusters morphing into each other to form utterly dark and dystopian ballads. Nagel gets lost in obsessively endless sessions with his instruments. He isolates himself and spends night after night drifting away from reality. The result is that his tracks carry moments of utterly deep relief and deliverance, as well as despairing sadness and stoical escapism.

Having grown up in the music scene of Southern Germany, Nagel spent his childhood mainly backstage - sleeping in cars while his father played in jazz clubs, or bored out of his mind during the endless orchestra rehearsals of his mother. While he never took proper classes to learn an instrument, the young autodidact could always count on his hearing. After moving to Berlin at 17, Nagel soon started working in the music business - at first with small student-jobs and later as a producer. He created his studio Resonant Workshop, a self-built wooden room-in-room construction to craft music and sound design.

After years of being in charge, controlling the process of artistic creation for others, it was not always easy for Nagel to focus on his own music. No sooner had he started to press record - he had to leave his studio due a serious water leak from ceiling causing him to be displaced to create. Trying to turn this throwback into an advantage, Nagel focussed mainly on improving his improvisational skills and started to work in different locations, and musicians he found in many directions. As a result, Distract Robots creates its dense atmosphere out of all kind of musical sources like field recordings, jam sessions, and analog machinery.

Despite its melodic complexity, improvisational skills and vivid drums, Distract Robots is rooted with one foot in the basement of an underground club featuring loops building up with unescapable pressure, majestic voice samples, and analog sawtooth wavefronts – while still reminding listeners of an electrified music combo playing live. This EP has become Nagel ´s long-awaited step away from behind the studio desk to finally addressing the audience directly. Lining up with the exquisite cast of euphoric-melancholic artists from InFine´ - like Rone, Apparat, Arandel or Murcof - inevitably feeding his hunger for acoustic sessions and electronic gear, the audience can be sure to hear more from Frieder Nagel.

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