Nick Franglen

Nick Franglen is a British musician, record producer and installation artist best known as a founding member of the electronica duo Lemon Jelly with Fred Deakin.

Throughout a varied and wide-ranging career Nick Franglenhas collaborated with many other artists and musicians. He has provided drum programming, keyboard sounds, electronics, remix and production duties for the likes of: Primal Scream, Blur, Badly Drawn Boy, Pet Shop Boys, John Cale, Mercury Rev, Coldcut and William Shatner.

Since 2007 Franglen has collaborated with Charles Casey of Akasha as guitar electronica duo Blacksand. Blacksand are notable for the unusual locations in which they perform their extended live improvisations, which include down a mine, inside a submarine and inside Pyestock, an abandoned scientific testing facility.

His more recent solo and installation work investigates the relationship between people and unusual spaces, which developed from his fascination with the locations in which Blacksand performed.

‘Hymn to London Bridge (2010)’ is a 24-hour performance in which Nick played the Theremin underneath London Bridge. Sensors mounted on the bridge above him registered members of the public crossing the bridge and provided moments of silence in the composition.
‘Hive’ is created by 50 transistor radio sets, each tuned to a different station and left to play inside an enclosed dome. It is an investigation into and comment on how we deal with the increasing torrent of information with which we are confronted, and the choices we make in filtering that information.

Franglen is inspired by the urban landscape and other found spaces, from London and Manhattan Bridges to a submarine, a mine and jet engine test bed. His unusual and thought provoking work contextualises its environment, providing an often spontaneous, improvised reaction to time and place.

Fun Fact

In his spare time Nick enjoys diving deep wrecks in the English Channel and the submerged caves of South Wales. Both of these hobbies scare the living daylights out of him.