Justine Elinor Frischmann (born 16 September 1969)[1] is an English artist and retired musician. After forming Suede, she co-founded the Britpop band Elastica before retiring from the music industry and pursuing a career as an artist.
Frischmann began writing and studying music at age 11.[2]
She was a founding member of the band Suede with Brett Anderson, whom she met at UCL in 1988. She left the band in October 1991.[2] In the 2018 documentary The Insatiable Ones, Anderson cites her as a highly significant influence on the band's first album.[7]
Frischmann later founded and fronted her own band, Elastica. In 1994, Elastica were voted Best New Band by NME readers at the Brit awards. They were signed to Deceptive Records in the UK, and later with Geffen Records in Europe and the US. Their first album, Elastica, released in 1995, became the fastest-selling debut album in UK history. In 1995, Elastica were nominated for the Mercury Music Prize for Elastica. The album went on to sell over a million copies worldwide. In 2001 the band announced an amicable breakup, citing, in part, burnout from a grueling touring schedule.
Frischmann spent the next few years developing artist M.I.A., whom she discovered. M.I.A. was Frischmann's friend and flatmate. Frischmann co-wrote and produced M.I.A.'s demos for her first album, Arular, most notably its 2003 single "Galang".
In 2017, Rough Trade Records released a remastered version of Elastica. In 2019, Rough Trade released a limited edition Elastica BBC sessions album on UK Record Store Day.
In 2005, Frischmann moved to Boulder, Colorado, to enroll in a masters program in visual arts at Naropa University, a small, Buddhist-inspired liberal arts college,[8] and "become a nobody". In 2012 her work was shortlisted for the UK's Marmite Prize for painting, and she has been included in The Amsterdam List of 1000 Living Painters.[9]
In a 2016 interview regarding her art career, Frischmann stated, "I don't really have any desire to make music, to be honest."[10]
Frischmann has said, "The themes and ideas I am working with are in direct relation to an ongoing personal narrative; the big questions are reflected in the choices I make in my art ... [including] my ever-evolving relationship with my spiritual faith. I think my approach and aesthetics reveal internal struggles and speak to my family origins and history."[11]
Personal life
Frischmann dated her Suede bandmate Brett Anderson at the time they co-founded the group.[12] She then dated Blur lead singer Damon Albarn from 1991 until the couple broke up in 1998, which served as inspiration for Blur's 1999 singles "No Distance Left to Run" and "Tender".
