Biography
Born in 1965 in Coburg, Germany, Friedmann stands among electronic music’s more enigmatic practitioners. German progressive rock, Gary Numan, Iron Maiden and Tangerine Dream shaped his early listening, yet childhood experiments with a cassette player proved decisive; he has often repeated Andy Warhol’s observation that “The acquisition of my tape recorder really finished whatever emotional life I might have had. But I was glad to see it go.”
He established the Nonplace label to reflect his own marginal position within the industry, its guiding principle being the deliberate blurring of genre boundaries. “Identity is the enemy because I don’t want to get stuck in a certain style,” he has stated. Based in Cologne, the artist has dispersed his work across numerous aliases and alter-egos—Drome, Gummibox, SMC (Some More Crime), Nonplace Urban Field, Flanger, the Nu Dub Players, Burnt Friedman and, despite his aversion to artists using their given names, Bernd Friedmann—without assigning fixed definitions to any of them. Each release originates from a distinct conceptual premise, which in turn demands a fresh moniker.
He also collaborates under the name Flanger with Atom Heart and, as Nine Horses, with David Sylvian and Steve Jansen. Alongside these shifting identities, Friedmann invents elaborate backstories for his projects. The Nu Dub Players album Just Landed (2000) was presented as a live recording captured in a South American club, though its creation actually occupied nearly three years of studio work. His methods frequently veer into the arcane—he has sampled the sound of a ballerina cracking her back and performed live with five MiniDisc players—while his motivations can be equally idiosyncratic: 1996’s Leisure Zones was conceived as music to fall asleep to and carried the suggestion that it be played at a volume “approximating the throb of traffic.” The resulting recordings remain consistently captivating and unfailingly compelling.
He established the Nonplace label to reflect his own marginal position within the industry, its guiding principle being the deliberate blurring of genre boundaries. “Identity is the enemy because I don’t want to get stuck in a certain style,” he has stated. Based in Cologne, the artist has dispersed his work across numerous aliases and alter-egos—Drome, Gummibox, SMC (Some More Crime), Nonplace Urban Field, Flanger, the Nu Dub Players, Burnt Friedman and, despite his aversion to artists using their given names, Bernd Friedmann—without assigning fixed definitions to any of them. Each release originates from a distinct conceptual premise, which in turn demands a fresh moniker.
He also collaborates under the name Flanger with Atom Heart and, as Nine Horses, with David Sylvian and Steve Jansen. Alongside these shifting identities, Friedmann invents elaborate backstories for his projects. The Nu Dub Players album Just Landed (2000) was presented as a live recording captured in a South American club, though its creation actually occupied nearly three years of studio work. His methods frequently veer into the arcane—he has sampled the sound of a ballerina cracking her back and performed live with five MiniDisc players—while his motivations can be equally idiosyncratic: 1996’s Leisure Zones was conceived as music to fall asleep to and carried the suggestion that it be played at a volume “approximating the throb of traffic.” The resulting recordings remain consistently captivating and unfailingly compelling.
Albums