Music / Get To Know
Get to Know: Nile Robinson
Nile Robinson’s music is hard to pin down. It falls in the contemporary folk category he says, though it depends what spills out his subconscious and who he’s jamming with on any particular day.
For a musician who claims little agency, Robinson is prolific and continues to create with urgency, inspired by the DIY scene he’s an integral part of. His latest album, The Angel Implied, featuring cellos, violins, flutes, slide whistles, drones and electronica, is “cloud folk music – contemporary 2025 best good songs” he says.
Bristol24/7 dug deeper into this psyche rooted in Bristol’s alt-folk underground.
No one in my family plays music but I gravitated towards the guitar at five years old.
Apparently my father’s brother was a travelling Catholic priest and very oratorical in his performance. But I don’t feel religious when I play music. If you’re a priest you’d have to be dead certain in what you were saying…. My music is more open to interpretation.
I make music from the point of view of songwriting.
For me the song is always first, and that is folk music to me.
A song is unphysical: it’s in the air, it has a shape that’s tangible and recognisable. It has a body that you can see but it’s by no means a physical thing. When I picture a song in my mind I’m raising its spirit. Billions of songs have not been sung yet, that’s the great sweetness of life.
I’m obsessed with words. Every word has a personality. We all have different relationships with their shapes and sounds.
Robinson is gearing up for a live show on October 17 that he says will be “band/folk music/solo acoustic guitar harmonicas and banjos, violins, cellos, pedal board and electric guitar music” – photo: BrandonFilm
I read a lot – at the moment it’s Don DeLillo, Pynchon and Hemingway – and think all the time about the value words have on their own. I write all my stuff on blank sheets of paper, building from the start every time – I don’t have preconceived ideas I want to put across. You always end up just expressing yourself no matter what.
All our life we’ve been recording stuff with our brain which takes in a lot more than we know. Anytime we do anything creative, the experiences comes out. You can express things you didn’t even know you experienced.
Bristol is a hub, like Paris in the 20s – it feels like a crazy pocket of time.
Robinson takes an improv approach to both his live shows and recorded music, trusting in the ideas and expression of the musicians in the room – photo: Barnes Chinnock
I was living in York and depressed as there’s no music scene. I moved to Bristol randomly, was living in the Full Moon hostel and found a job and house in a few weeks. It worked out so well – it almost feels like destiny.
There are so many talented musicians here it gets confusing sometimes – how is it even possible?! This year there’s a lot of crazy energy in the air and people are fighting, falling out, the whole scene has been very chaotic. But there’ll be new people coming along. Bristol is so full of talented people.
The scene I’m involved with is based mostly on comedy – who can do the most audacious thing?
It’s tight knit – in Bristol I’m playing to people who have seen me ten times before, so I’m going to play new songs, I want to give people something to talk about. So it’s, who can do the unexpected, who can do something interesting. It’s reaching the point of an echo chamber, things bouncing off each other.
The vibrance and versatility makes me think about music in a different way.
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It’s very eclectic, there are many different sounds and genres and feelings. And I’m working with musicians on this album that are pulling out sounds I didn’t even know belonged to me. Working with different people in Bristol has changed everything. I let them do whatever they want to do. I don’t think I’ve ever told a musician what to do or what I want from them. I speak in terms of feeling.
I like the world to do what it’s going to. I don’t consider myself to have much agency.
Part of the DIY scenes cultivated by Below the Belt, Community Jam Collective and Cellardoor, Robinson is astounded by the amount of talented musicians of all genres he’s met in Bristol – photo: Amber Murray
Our live shows are mostly just people that show up and play whatever they want. That’s the way I record as well. You can tap into the vein of improvisation alot because the whole scene is built on improv and jam nights. That’s where the soul of the person is – when they don’t know what they’re doing that’s when you can get the best out of someone.
I really believe in the beginner’s mindset: looking at things without any preconceived ideas of notes or chords. No thought, just feeling like a child. It’s like being lost and having to find your way, build something new – playing an instrument you’re not sure about is a totally different feeling.
Once I finish something I just forget about it. It’s like I’ve done nothing.
I just keep trying to do new stuff. I write quick and I have a lot of songs that I want to get out. I just want to get to the next thing as quickly as possible. Maybe it’s because I want to find out what’s going to happen next.
Nile Robinson plays The Angel Implied with full live band, including members of Hypothetics, Scuttlers and Snails, at St Stephen’s Church on October 17. Ilaina Lowe and Dan Pacini support. All information and tickets at: www.headfirstbristol.co.uk/whats-on/st-stephen-s-church/fri-17-oct-down-by-presents-nile-robinson-s-the-angel-implied-album-release-139382#e139382
The album was produced at Living Room studios in St Paul’s with support from electronic producer Redh3rring and includes a live track recorded at the Louisiana.
Main photo: Dylan Evans
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