On his debut album "From The Cold", Patrick Lammer explores uncharted territory, both in sound and content, telling stories about fears and hopes in an era steeped in uncertainty. In an array of emotional songs, he is looking for the extreme: fragile, stripped-down ballads are found alongside epic synthie beats; deconstructed field recordings and experimental, electronic soundscapes are followed by passionate piano instrumentals that evoke his past as a classically trained pianist.

Patrick loves to challenge boundaries in his uncompromising lyrics, mapping out a path throughout the course of the album from human downfalls to ecstatic euphoria, telling of co-dependency and isolation, queer love and sex, forces of nature, visions of the future, of shape-shifting and magical creatures.

“Even though some of the songs had been with me for some time, they seem to have surprising relevance and impact in our current age - sometimes I had the strange feeling that reality is catching up with us.”, he says. “For example, when I wrote the first sketches of ‘Thank You’ many years ago, mental health was not really a topic in pop music; now it´s an omnipresent topic. Some of the songs seem to have waited for the perfect time to ‘come out of the closet’”, he says, smiling, “and now they magically formed a perfect union. The album starts out with a vision of liberation and ‘coming together’ and then proceeds to push you back to the start, into the darkness, into the cold. That´s what you will have to go through, through all those painful and cathartic processes, to step out of them renewed and transformed, looking ahead, optimistic, almost euphoric, despite the realities around you.”

Stream and Download “From The Cold” here:

The album was produced together with Bernd Satzinger, well known in the Austrian music scene for his unique musical language, who, with his love for reduction and flickering electronics, provides an ideal contrast to Patrick‘s bold vocals and confrontational songwriting and can be heard on the record on guitar and modular synthesizer.

"We put a lot of work into finding the unique sound for each and every song: how far can we go? How minimal, or just how big and opulent? Which arrangement will lead us to the specific athmosphere this song demands?" he explains about the producing process. "In the end, the songs will tell you exactly what they need. And they´re insistant, and just like us they wouldn´t give in until the right results showed up. I think you can hear how much attention and time we´ve devoted to these processes."

When asked about music he draws inspiration from, Patrick starts naming Indie legends like Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens, Tori Amos or Sinéad O'Connor, who have paved the way for tons of other artists with their willingness to experiment and cross boundaries in their deeply personal, emotionally charged bodies of work. "These artists encouraged me to follow my own path, without paying too much attention to current trends and looking for instant validation; in the end, you´re only really satisfied when you know you´ve done your thing and created something new and unique, something no one else would have done this way."

From The Cold is released on January 27th, 2023.

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Photo: Marija Sabanovic

ARTIST BIO PATRICK LAMMER

Patrick startet playing the piano and writing songs at the age of 3 and hasn´t stopped since. After studying at the Bavarian Academy of Dramatic Arts in Munich he can be found in every imaginable position at theaters across the globe, on stage as an actor, singer and musician, behind the scenes as composer and musical director, often at the same time. He has worked at renowned venues and festivals such as the Bregenz Festival, the Vienna Festival, has toured across Europe and had a guest appearance at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

All this time, Patrick was busy realizing projects of his own, writing, recording, and experimenting with different arts and genres. In 2015 he met Bernd Satzinger while working as musical director of Shakespeares “Comedy Of Errors” at the Salzburg Festival, which is where they decided to team up and collaborate on some of his songs. It would take some more years until they made it to the studio, but once the first track was recorded, these two very different artists realized that this would probably just be the beginning of a long-lasting project.

In April 2021, the debut single “THANK YOU” was released and surprised listeners with its drastic content and haunting, cinematic melody. It received enthusiastic reviews and had its premiere on public broadcast radio in July that same year.

The second single “GRATEFUL” presented a softer side of Patricks writing, with its almost transparent arrangement and tender vocals. Well-renowned Vienna based artist and filmmaker Philipp Fleischmann produced a video for the single, shot entirely on Super-8 film, offering an intimate vizualisation of the songs deeper layers. The video was featured in the official selection of the Austrian Music Video Awards 2022 at the Vienna Shorts Festival.

Both being veterans of live performance, Patrick Lammer and Bernd Satzinger took to the stage in 2022, playing at top venues like Viennas Porgy&Bess and rhiz, but also making guest appearences f.e. at the Venice Biennale and other special locations.

Now, Patrick is looking forward to taking the next big step and finally releasing his first full-length album. While this album “only” contains 7 tracks, Patrick claims, tongue-in-cheek, that “it´s a wild ride: the listeners will probably need a minute to recover after they´re finished, so I believe the amount of music on the album is just right: it´s compact, dense and loaded, with peaks and valleys all over the place, and I can´t wait to share it with the world.”