Nerve Leak

Electronic producer and singer/songwriter, Nerve Leak channels love's tumultuous undertones on "DR34M5." He relies on honesty as he sings to his lover in clear falsettos over a an instrumental laced with tasteful trap influences. Despite his somber sentiments, the beat is an easy one to ride. It knocks just at the right times.
In an email to The FADER, Nerve Leak wrote:
"DR34M5" is about being caught up in the intimacy of a new love, but ultimately pulling away to mend unhealed wounds. I found myself falling for someone new, shortly after leaving an unhealthy relationship that really changed the lens through which I saw love. It was no longer this intoxicating, affirming experience. It felt full of stress, fear, and manipulation. I wrote the lyrics as a way of admitting that I shouldn’t give myself to someone new if I haven’t yet taken the time to re-learn who I am on my own. But it’s also about confessing that you can’t turn off feelings of lust, loneliness, and inner-conflict; it’s just the first step in trying to put yourself first."
Listen to the track below: - The Fader

It’s not an easy feat to pull of a song with both a sense of deeply felt humanity and otherworldly distance, but on “Moon Pulls” Nerve Leak walks the line adeptly. The song, Sam Friedman, a 24­ year­ old Brooklyn­-based artist says, is about the moment when you finally find a long lusted after lover in your arms.

The song, he says, began as a poem.

“I was sitting on my bed with the windows open to my back. It was June, around 10 A.M. I had barely slept the night before and felt drunk, though I didn’t drink anything. The lyrics came out as a stream-of-consciousness attempt to express the intense feelings of embracing someone romantically after longing for them for over a year. I felt ecstasy from the embrace and melancholy from the leftover pain from hiding my feelings for so long. There were layers of trust—submissive and dominant—that felt raw and real in a way I hadn’t experienced.”

Lingering in that spot can be a tough place to be, filled with highs and lows. It’s not just about the sex though.

“It’s about that overwhelming feeling when you’re so tied up in someone that you ask yourself: ‘What did I do to deserve you? What can I do to keep you / to love you?’ When I decided to put the lyrics to music, I wanted to make the production dark and monochromatic, but also rhythmic and alive. Pairing hip-hop and trap-inflected beats with glitchy vocal samples of my voice, the music soars from low to high; soft to brash; submissive to dominant. The end result is a metaphor for how the moon controls the tides. The emotional and physical attraction I felt was like a command; I was pulled in.”

Hear more from Nerve Leak here. - Bullett Magazine

Nerve Leak is the solo project of Brooklyn-based artist Sam Friedman. Originally used as a secret outlet while fronting indie-post-rock bands throughout the Virginia music scene, Nerve Leak has gone onto release on Bad Panda and Warminal Records and on June 23 released his debut EP, Disconnected. Sitting alongside the EP is Snow /Sun /Words, an international writing project which sees writers around the world sharing their unique poetic interpretations of EP cut, “Snow / Sun”. Also from the EP is "Hurt You," a spacious and moody cut with deep sound design and melancholic lyrics, which you can download for free below. The full EP can also be purchased here. - XLR8R

"I don't wanna love you, I can't handle the stress. I just wanna fuck you, and fuck the rest."
Despite the atmospheric, witchy trap that surrounds them, the opening lines of Sam Friedman's new single as Nerve Leak, "DR34M5," come through clear as a bell. They're not as blunt or insensitive as they seem at first, though. Friedman, based in New York by-way-of Richmond, VA, is unpacking the complex contradictions that arise between love and lust. In an email to The Fader, Friedman explains his own feelings after going through a difficult relationship, saying:
"love was no longer this intoxicating, affirming experience. It felt full of stress, fear, and manipulation. I wrote the lyrics as a way of admitting that I shouldn't give myself to someone else if I haven't yet taken the time to relearn who I am on my own."
Nerve Leak released the Disconnected EP last year, and "DR34M5" is his best work yet. Listen to the track above. - Earmilk

Brooklyn-based musician Nerve Leak has unveiled the second single from his forthcoming debut EP Disconnected, which he will self-release on June 23rd. We had the opportunity to chat with Nerve Leak about the tune ('Alone'), as well as his thoughts on how people will react to it.



What was the inspiration/idea behind the 'Alone'?

When I was writing 'Alone', I wanted to combine the euphoria of dance music with the sorrow of lovelorn lyrics. I chose a house-inflected kick drum, armed with percussive bells, skyward synths, and reverb-blurred 808 drum samples, to give the song a dance angle. But I wrote the lyrics from a perspective that was somewhere far removed; somewhere you may not want to go if you're on a night out, club hopping. The opening lyric, "When I heard you say you no longer felt the same, everything fell away," is about that heart-stopping moment when you can't believe a lover has decided to move on without you. You want to change their mind and to put up a fight, but you are paralyzed with solitude and sinking self-worth. "I could hardly speak 'cause the ocean in my throat held me down," refers to tears drowning your voice--the more you try to speak, the more you choke. You want more than anything to say something to change their mind, but you know you can't; all you can do is face the mourning alone.

I like this juxtaposition because it gives the track two purposes: one where you're at a club, and the sub-bass and driving rhythms move you to dance. On the other hand, it attempts to console heartbreak in a pair of bulky headphones, reminding you that you're not the only one suffering the pain of lost love.

Is there any particular time or place in the universe where it'd sound best?

'Alone' embraces the future by being pre-dominantly electronic; yet, the most human instrument (voice), singing about the most human emotion (love) grounds it to the present. I would not classify it as avant guard as much of the experimental, futuristic music I listen to from artists like Arca, FKA twigs, Björk, and Burial. But I do think 'Alone' has a modern sound that will have a place in the future, but not necessarily in the past. While I have my voice singing love lyrics, it's oftentimes pitched down, reversed, and drenched in effects--turning it into something apparitional and surreal. I find beauty in disorienting samples of human instrumentation, and pairing them with electronic, rhythmic soundscapes. It's an approach that feels modern and future-leaning.

Overall, I hope 'Alone' sounds best in a time and place where the lines between pop and experimental have been erased; a place where it's familiar to hear a singer's voice turned into a ghostlike clone of itself overtop of a dance beat made from samples of metal sheets being moved in a factory. The ingredients we use to make music are becoming less and less conventional, and as we look into the future, it's becoming possible to make music out of sounds completely removed from traditional instrumentation. 'Alone' has some traditional instrumentation, but I've done my best to blur the recognition of those instruments into experimental layers that reinvent the way they are typically communicated.

How do you hope or imagine people will react to it?

I think there's room for different people to embrace this song in different ways. At a base level, the house rhythms and pulsing synths are something that casual listeners or people in an upbeat environment can dance to. At the same time, I hope people who are alone with the opportunity to listen more deeply will find the lyrics remind them of a similar situation they were once in.

Compared with the other tracks on the EP, this one took me the longest to get right because I felt like I was trying to say so many things: from the bouncing bells in the intro to the deep-cut saw synths in the mid-section to the layers of ambience in the outro. The track is just under four minutes, but it takes several turns. I hope listeners can approach the song from multiple perspectives; for me, there are portions that are despondent, energized, pensive, hopeless, and euphoric. I want each emotion to have the potential to be communicated, depending on who the listener is or in what situation they're hearing it.

We also recommend checking out the title-track from his forthcoming EP: - The 405

here’s something to be said about producers that are constantly pushing the boundaries of genres and breaking them down. One such producer is 24 year-old Brooklyn based singer-songwriter Sam Friedman aka Nerve Leak with his unique style that mixes experimental and pop with a basis in trap beats. After releasing his debut EP, Disconnected, last year introduced him to the scene, he continued to explore his sound with the follow-up single “DR34M5” half a year ago. This week, Nerve Leak has returned with “Moon Pulls,” a track that’s as much about embracing a long-lusted-after lover for the first time as much as it is about Nerve Leak embracing his own style.

From the first weighted hip-hop inflected beat, it is clear that this track has a fullness that was not necessarily missing from “DR34M5” but has been fully realized in “Moon Pulls.” With the lyrics, Sam’s songwriter skills shine through, and alongside the synth distortions, lend to an ethereal atmosphere in spite of the lyrics raw nature. It’s not often that one gets to see an artist in the process of finding their own sound, which makes Nerve Leak’s progression from his first EP until now that more enjoyable.
This is definitely one track that you should not miss. Check it out today. - Earmilk

Nerve Leak hits home with a beautiful vocal piece, "Snow / Sun". - EDM.com

Sam Friedman AKA Nerve Leak, has today released his self-titled EP, Disconnected, the full four-track coming after the first three tracks premiered with EDM.com, The 405, and Impose. We're incredibly honoured to share the fourth and final track, Hurt You, one that rounds out the full Disconnected EP. It's the culmination of a large project for Friedman, one that includes an international writing project exploring how the life of music can still be extended in a society of convenience, consumerism, and a throwaway attitude. To contribute, writers were asked to share their poetic interpretations of EP cut, Snow/Sun, which were compiled into an e-Book, which you can view HERE.

The EP itself is a wildly diverse, contemplative release, which traverses a whole spectrum of sound across the four tracks. Alone is a thumping, darker industrial house tune in the vein of our Golden Features; the title track is an emotive, slow-burning number, with hints of folk-tronica also exhibited on Snow/Sun; before finally Hurt You comes to a dark, melancholic finale.

It's rare to see a young producer investing so much into a release at a time when you can just throw any kind of release out into the blogosphere and simply hope for the best. We're seriously impressed: - Pilerats

We have featured him on Going Solo for the first time in one of our weekly Going Inbox; then again when he released his single Alone. Now we’re glad and proud to introduce you Nerve Leak‘s last song from his debut EP Disconnected: Hurt You. The track is an experimental electronic piece with a bewitch structure and a disquieting mixture of beats and drones. It sounds like Xiu Xiu’s old works and it’s quite different from its previous sisters, but for the same reason is also very intriguing.

Hurt You is out since June 23rd , as indeed the whole self-released debut EP. This work is connected with Snow / Sun / Words, an international writing project about music and its meaning in our age of convenience and consumerism. We can just hope that such a valuable effort can find the right praise and wish the best for the future career of this promising Brooklyn-based artist.

Listen below. - Going Solo

Nerve Leak is Sam Friedman, an electronic producer and singer/songwriter based in Brooklyn. We introduced him to our readers in one of our latest Going Inbox columns, sharing the title track from his upcoming debut Disconnected. Today is time to discover another excerpt from it, a new song called Alone. Heavily influenced by the sound of guys like Jamie xx and James Blake, this electronic piece is driven by thumping drums and enriched by stretched synth lines and hazy vocals

Sam said in a nice interview to The 405: “When I was writing ‘Alone’, I wanted to combine the euphoria of dance music with the sorrow of lovelorn lyrics. I chose a house-inflected kick drum, armed with percussive bells, skyward synths, and reverb-blurred 808 drum samples, to give the song a dance angle.”

Listen below. - Going Solo