The Frills agency has launched in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district with a pledge to shake up the electronic music scene.
The agency brings together a team of specialists in artist development to offer a multi-faceted range of services, from bookings, marketing and brand creation to business affairs, consulting, record label management and event production.
“We forge and nurture relationships with electronic music artists based on trust, friendship, integrity, honesty, transparency and loyalty,” said co-founder Aga Heller (pictured). “Our primary focus is to help artists develop their profiles and personalities by providing customised concepts and services.
“2020 has proven to us that artists and their team needs to be adaptable now more than ever. Traditional structures of manager, agent, PR, and social media teams are expensive, slow, and outdated. We’re redefining that by bringing everything under one roof so we can work on the big picture - applying resources where they’re needed in relation to an artist’s career in a dynamic, fluid, and efficient way. This allows us to bring value in a way that traditional agencies cannot.”
The holistic approach to artist management combines booking management, marketing and PR as well as business affairs to form the overall strategy.
“The concepts and methods we employ are defined by our team together,” according to a company statement. “Everyone plays a key part, working hand-in-hand to achieve the goals of our artists, step by step. We work to raise awareness, grow audiences and build lasting and meaningful profiles and brands through organic evolution, whilst being sensitive to the fast-changing pace of music and entertainment culture.”
With 25 years’ experience in the world of electronic music, Heller led the bookings team for Solomun’s Diynamic roster of artists before going on to manage the global event series Hyte.
For this new venture into artist development, Heller has teamed up with music industry entrepreneur David Lewis, co-founder of David Lewis Productions, Alda and Armada Music. The pair first met in 2000 when Heller was working at Warner Music.
Lewis went on to establish global event brands and has worked with international artists across the electronic music spectrum.
We want to help shape the next generation of electronic music for decades to come
Aga Heller
The booking department will be led by Catherine Stoy, whose 15-year career includes stints with Richie Hawtin’s former M-nus bookings roster at Clonk Artist Booking and more recently as a booking agent for Temporary Secretary, representing Dixon, Ame and others.
“Our method is anything but conventional,” said Heller. “We opened our office one week before Covid-19 shut down the entire global events industry! But that means we’ve been able to structure our team and processes from the ground up, without relying on any one artist to influence the overall direction of the roster. We want to announce our partnerships with artists gradually to reflect our approach to building the company - selecting every artist for their individual merits, sharing their objectives as partners, team members and friends.
“We want to nurture every aspect of an artists’ career and that involves a commitment from both parties that goes deeper than fleeting trends or overnight social media success. House and Techno are labels, but we operate beyond the borders of genres. We want to help shape the next generation of electronic music for decades to come, from behind the scenes, in the booth and on the dancefloor.”
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