Connection

Background:

British singer and guitarist Justine Frischmann is best recalled as the co-founder and lead vocalist of Elastica (1992-2001), an English group that played attention-getting, angular funk rock-influenced music. Their 1995 self-titled debut album spawned the hit singles “Shutter” and “Connection,” which both charted in the U.S and the U.K. The group went to a permanent breakup in 2001, after releasing a second album, “The Manace.” Frischmann previously played lead and rhythm guitar in the band Suede (1989-1991).

After the defunct of Elastica, Frischmann can be seen presenting in such TV shows as BBC's “Dreamspaces” (2003) and “The South Bank Show” (2004). She also has helped writing demos for flatmate M.I.A and the group White Rose Movement.

As for her private life, Frischmann dated Brett Anderson while in college and they co-founded the band Suede in 1989. He is now in a new band called “The Tears,” which he founded with Bernard Butler in 2004. After her separation from Anderson, Frischmann was in highly-published romance with Blur's Damon Albarn. They split up in 1998, after having dated for several years. Frischmann maintains good relationships with both Anderson and Albarn. She now lives in a four-storey Victorian house in Notting Hill.

“A bit worrying. I sometimes wonder whether maybe I'm getting old before my years or something, whether I should be more... whether I should still have that need. It feels good, though. A lot better. I do feel that I sort of did my bit. So you may very well never hear from me again - doing anything. I mean, maybe this is the point where I suddenly start having babies.” Justine Frischmann

The Bartlett

Childhood and Family:

Justine Elinor Frischmann was born on September 16, 1969, in Twickenham, Middlesex, England, to a Hungarian refugee and Holocaust survivor father and a Russian mother. She has a brother named Richard Frischmann. She attended The Bartlett, University College London, where she studied architecture and met the then boyfriend and soon-to-be bandmate Brett Anderson. Currently, she is studying visual arts and psychology at Naropa University.

Elastica

Career:

Justine Frischmann formed the Britpop band Suede in 1989, while still a student at The Bartlett, along side the then boyfriend Brett Anderson, also from The Bartlett. She played lead and rhythm guitar for the band, but decided to leave the group in 1991 because she felt she had not enough chance to contribute to the band's development.

Frischmann next established a new band in the summer of 1992 called Elastica, with former suede drummer Justin Welch. Before settling on the name Elastica, the group performed under such names as Vaseline and Onk. In early 1993, Frischmann and her group released their first single titled “Stutter,” which profited from the the promotional attempts of BBC Radio 1 DJ and Deceptive Records leader Steve Lamacq who had spotted the group earlier in the year. Their next singles, “Line Up” and “Connection,” were released in the following year and both became the UK to 20 singles. Subsequently, they were invited to perform on a number of radio shows. Frischmann's romance with Damon Albarn of Blur, which received many media attentions, created further buzz about the band.

In March 1995, Elastica eventually released a self-titled debut album, which debuted at No. 1 on the UK charts and became one of the fastest selling debut albums in the UK history at the period. The album's forth single, “Waking Up,” reached No. 13 on the Britain single chart, which marked their highest placing so far. Still in 1995, the group earned a Mercury Music Prize nomination for their work in the album. Thanks to the hits “Shutter” and “Connection,” Elastica also gained attention in America, where the songs received airplay on modern rock radio and charted on the pop charts. The album itself went gold. The group enjoyed the success of their debut album by performing at the 1995 Glastonbury Festival and joining the Lollapalooza tour.

In the height of their success, however, Frischmann and Elastica emerged as the subject of controversy when bands such as Wire and The Strangers sued them for plagiarism. The group showed no objections over the accusations. They stated that all pop bands have borrowed ideas and all music was eventually recycled.

In the fall of 1996, after playing even more shows and demoing new material, Elastica returned to the studio to begin work on their next album. They, however, had to deal with unproductiveness and were not heard for the next two years. A few reports that the band received were about the change of its members. In August 1999, Elastica eventually launched a self-titled 6 track EP, which marked the first new material from the band in more than 4 years. The group's second album, “The Manace,” was eventually released in April 2000. After releasing a farewell single called “The Bitch Don't Work,” Elastica announced their amicable separation.

After the breakup, Frischmann found herself performing lead vocal on the single “Don't look the other way” by Pleasure in 2003. The same year, she also served as co-presenter for the BBC series “Dreamspaces,” about modern architecture, and penned the incidental theme tune for the Channel 4 “Working It.” Still on television, Frischmann presented the UK's premier and longest running arts programme “The South Bank Show” in 2004 and was featured as a judge in the “Stirling Prize for Architecture,” that same year.

In 2005, Frischmann supported her friend M.I.A. By co-writing all the first demos for her album. She co-penned the music on M.I.A's single, “Galang.” Besides, Frischmann has produced demos for the group White Rose Movement.

Awards:
---