XY001A_tapes-aug25

Simon Engl aka. ENGL, born 1990 in the north of Italy, moved to Vienna for his studies of Media Technology and works as a video editor and German speaking voice actor. Making music is a side hustle still, but the goal is to be playing out live more, and inviting live sets as a source of income into his life.

He never studied music but picked up saxophone at the age of 26, took ear training /music theory lessons, after some year of experimenting with pocket operators. Soon after that, he fell in love with the Elektron boxes…and Eurorack Modular Synths and Effects. Pedals are also ace!!

This led him falling into a rabbit hole of DAW-less music making. In 2022 he got discovered via instagram (videos of live improv posts) by the Berlin based Label “r.o.t. Respectortolerate Records” and got signed. He played various live Sets in Vienna, also at a Radio Show called “FM4 Unlimited” in 2024. The same year he played at the Donauinselfest, the performance can be found in full length on YouTube.

Each live set is pretty much improvised. Although, after some years of heavy improvisation at his gigs, he now gravitates more towards the work ethic and live set approaches of e.g. Rival Consoles and Barker, two artists that ENGL is deeply inspired by. 
Composing in the bedroom studio with the exact same setup that is being used on stage, allows for playing out with less headache in preparation for the gigs, while at the same time still being able to create musical expression through improvisation.

Looking up to pioneers of electronic music constantly getting inspiration from how other artist -not only musicians - work. When it comes to music, a club night is cool, but my molecules are more moved when I feel (not necessarily see) that there is something going on on the soundscape that can break, evolve, emerge, fall into pieces… a flawless dj set is really somerhing, but the element of surprise catches my personal attention more. so for example, totally free form things like "cirle of live" a concept with many live musicians and even dancers, founded by sebastian mullaert, is an immensly inspiring approach how also a club night or outdoor party could be sonically created.
also, one of my hobbies is, finding yet unknown people that do amazing stuff, just to name a few of my latest fanboy moments was the discovery of: JakoJako, barker, Anna z., J. Manuel Werk, cuckoo, Enko, divKid, Brian Eno, lady Starlight, Efdemin, NickHook, christina Ruf, Erik Emil Eskildsen, ….the list just goes on forEver…<3