BACKGROUND
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Nik moved to Europe as a teen and spent his youth with a foot on each continent. As the progeny of a San Francisco hippie and a Mexican entrepreneur, he was raised with a wariness of corporate interests, Groucho Marx’s sarcasm, the strumming of mariachi guitars and the poetry of Dr Seuss. On her deathbed, his mother left him with these parting words ‘Remember that in life, there is only one cardinal sin: being boring. Whatever you do in life, never be f*cking boring.‘
EDUCATION
Nik studied illustration and music in high school and performed with several experimental bands as a drummer and bassist. While completing his first master’s, he wrote and illustrated his first book, THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS, published by Maelström Editions. The publisher then teamed him up with the writer Philippe Wilkin for two other books, Gilgamesh and Mohammad. With his second master’s in filmmaking (IAD film school), Nik launched his production company and started directing commercials, clips and music videos for local artists and startups.
FILM
His student film, ANGEL, an arthouse horror flick, was screened in more than 50 international film festivals, won best short film at Los Angeles Screamfest, and garnered numerous accolades. The film caught the eye of XYZ FILMS (Los Angeles, Toronto) and ANONYME FILMS (Brussels) with whom he set out to prepare his feature film. When co-production plans fell through, Nik self-produced the film with a shoestring budget. TOMBVILLE premiered at the GERARDMER film festival (France) in 2014 and went on to screen in international film festivals around the world, BIFFF (Brussels), IMAGINE (Amsterdam), FANTASPOA (Brazil), FANTASTIC FEST (Austin, Texas), PUFF (Portugal), POLLYGRIND (Las Vegas), MORBIDO (Mexico), and winning best sound design at HORRORANT (Greece). The film is not available online but the Cinevox review can be read here and the trailer can be found on AlloCine or Googled.
MUSIC AND PERFORMANCE
Scoring Tombville became a watershed in Nik’s sonic journey. In Berlin, he had been exposed to techno club culture and the vanguard electronic scene. One thing led to another and, in 2015, he performed his first live set at the MADAME CLAUDE club in Kreuzberg (Berlin). This performance kick-started his musical activities and set him off touring venues, clubs, art galleries and festivals around the world: Indonesia, Singapore, New York, Prague, Vienna, Mexico City, Bali, Uppsala, Amsterdam, London, Barcelona, Helsinki, Budapest, Stockholm, Tallinn…(visuals archived on Instagram @Nik_List)
Following the pandemic hiatus, Nik started posting his tracks online and on Spotify in 2024. The latest releases of his upcoming album, NO FUTURE, can be found HERE.
In 2020, he also became a professor in higher education.
Here is the 10-step artistic manifesto he abides by:
To contact him, follow the social links at the top of the page.
