NILS FRAHM Vinilo y CD

Review: Iceland's Olafur Arnalds (Kiasmos) and German multi-instrumentalist Nils Frahm team up again for some breathtaking excursions in classical/ambient crossover bliss. Frahm's sombre piano passages gently dance over Arnalds' serene soundscapes and eerie field recordings on this bittersweet and emotive journey. What was meant to be a one hour video recording of the duo in action turned out to be an eight hour long improvisation session and these are some of the segments of the wonderful marathon recording. We particularly enjoyed the gorgeously haunting electronic soul captured on "23:52" where those analogue synth strings just rise and rise to an epic climax.

Review: A match made in heaven, again. German underground hero FS Blumm teams up with everyone's favourite eccentric electronic pianist-producer-mad scientist Nils Frahm for a fourth collaborative album, and despite this combination of spectacular talent being familiar to fans by now, this one is delightfully unexpected. We're guessing that's what the whole 2 Times 1 Equals 4 title is all about.
Bad maths aside, the record is saturated in dubby moods, head-nodding rhythms and reverberating low ends, crackled harmonies and guitar licks ensuring there's a definite depth to the heavy grooves, none of which are really in keeping with either of the names involved. Set to mesmerising electronica, the refined instrumentation calls to mind the likes of Sabres of Paradise at their best. Which is definitely not something you get to say every day.

Review: F.S.Blumm and Nils Frahm have made a wealth of fantastic collaborative LPs before now. 2X1=4 is the fourth and it comes on Leiter, a label that has been newly formed by Frahm and his manager, Felix Grimm. Across the course of seven subversive tracks. The pair explore a rather unpredicted dub world. Plenty of 80s drum machines lend the album is unique musical signature and 2X1=4 follows on from Frahm's surprise album Graz, which he dropped on his usual home of Erased Tapes back in March.

Review: F.S Bluum and Nils Frahm are old sparring partners, having first joined forces in the studio for 2010's Music For Lovers Music Versus Time. Three years on from their last joint venture, the pair is reunited on Tag Eins Tag Zwei. Each side of the record is made up of a gently evolving suite of interconnected tracks, seemingly formed from live improvisations in the studio. With Bluum playing a variety of guitars, and Frahm piano, harmonium and celesta, there's a pleasingly organic feel to proceedings. As a result, both sides sit somewhere between krautrock, ambient, and modern classical, with the music being rarely less than magical.

Review: To celebrate the release of their first collaborative work in three years, Tag Eins Tag Zwei, F.S Bluum and Nils Frahm have decided to reissue their first two albums on one gatefold release. Record one boasts Music For Lovers Music Versus Time, the 2010 debut that established their studio partnership. Boasting a selection of improvisations focused on Bluum's acoustic guitars and Frahm's piano, it's also blessed with some magical contributions from brass and woodwind players. Over on record two, you'll find 2013's Music For Wobbling Music Versus Gravity, which successfully stripped back their core approach - just guitars and piano, with occasional use of effects pedal and sampled textures - whilst retaining their delicate balance between neo-classical beauty and high-minded experimentation.

Review: In recent years, traditional instrumentalists have gained many more new fans then in years past. Why music scholars can debate why, we just think it's because of the great composers like Germany's Nils Frahm being found. His latest titled Day, presents six pieces that stride between poignant and melancholy. The placement of microphones to record lend itself to the depth of each piece. Picking up room sounds and even a dog barking in the background, help add to the depth and mood of each program. Nils is effortless on the piano as he gently paints with his fingertips. The beauty in these mostly piano compositions like 'Butter Notes', 'Changes' and 'Hands On' are breathtakingly peaceful, stark and ultimately, very moving. Memory provoking music. When you get a Nils Frahm album, you aren't just buying an album. You are buying peace on earth in the form of music.
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Review: Ambient and neo-classical pioneer Nils Frahm's Music For Animals is, amazingly for someone as prolific as he, his first fresh studio material since 2018's All Melody and 2019's associated All Encores. It is also his first work on the new label he has co-founded with his manager and it plays out over three immersive hours that are quite different to his previous work. It doesn't make use of his famous piano skills but is a mediative and spacious record that allows room to think. Despite the length of it, this is a record worth giving your full attention.

Review: Nils Frahm has done more than any other contemporary artist we can think of to make the piano cool again. He plays with feeling, but is also not afraid to break the rules, tune his instrument in weird ways and fuse t with electronic sounds. He's super prolific, too, and here comes his latest long player. Electric Piano is an ambient and drone album split into 10 parts. Each one is delicate, graceful, and quietly artistic and all are said to be signifiers of where the German might be going in future. We like it.

Review: Nils Frahm once told us that he practices his piano every single day whether he likes it or not. we imagine that, given the huge amounts of music he puts on out the regular, he must record most of those sessions with a view to pressing them to wax. This month alone his has two albums out, for example, both on the LEITER label. This one is not new though - it is a vinyl return for Streichelfisch in its original 2055 form but with a couple of extra tracks from his 2006 digital only EP My First. It is material that has all aged well.

Review: Trying to keep up with Nils Frahm's discography is nothing short of dizzying. We struggle to think of anyone who can put out so many long form albums without letting the quality suffer a little, yet the German composer seems to be incapable of doing anything other than the finest quality work, laying claim to a back catalogue of piano tracks which can be sad, reflective, poignant, innovative, captivating, or euphoric, and always impossible to forget.

He's done so much, in fact, that he's still unearthing parts of his oeuvre people haven't really heard before. As is the case here. Old New Friends is as fitting a title as they get, with everything here first recorded between 2009 and this year, representing what the artist describes as "an anatomy of all my ways of thinking musically and playing." Simply put, if you like even just a little of what you've heard before, this is essential.

Review: Nils Frahm's latest must-check full-length excursion is not a brand-new work to mark Piano Day, the annual celebration of the instrument that made him famous, but rather an unheard collection from the vaults. It was recorded for Erased Tapes back in 2009, while he was still a student at the University of Performing Arts Graz, but for some reason they decided not to issue it at the time. It's Frahm at his minimalistic, spine-tingling best, offering up a swathe of solo piano pieces that veer from melancholic meditations, and immersive soundscapes, to genuinely cinematic compositions, yearning jazz interludes and - in the case of the brilliant 'Hammers' - gloriously uplifting workouts for vocal and piano.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Even the most determinedly understated chin-strokers will likely have emitted a squeal of delight when this one was announced. Everyone's favourite electronic producer-cum-contemporary composer (or vice versa?) releasing his latest works of art across two media - namely an album on cult hero label Erased Tapes, and a movie available on highbrow streaming service Mubi.

This is the audio, and while nobody who caught the video when it was available to view on-demand could argue this is just as powerful on its own, the solo sound is still an intoxicating and compelling ride. 'The Dane' is classy piano bliss, '#2' sits in the big room electronica end of things, 'Fundamental Values' is a scatty, broken ambient journey to the edges of drum 'n' bass, 'Enters' opens on long, ambient refrains.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Creasing on corners of outer sleeve, , product unopened & in excellent condition***


RECOMMENDED
Even the most determinedly understated chin-strokers will likely have emitted a squeal of delight when this one was announced. Everyone's favourite electronic producer-cum-contemporary composer (or vice versa?) releasing his latest works of art across two media - namely an album on cult hero label Erased Tapes, and a movie available on highbrow streaming service Mubi.

This is the audio, and while nobody who caught the video when it was available to view on-demand could argue this is just as powerful on its own, the solo sound is still an intoxicating and compelling ride. 'The Dane' is classy piano bliss, '#2' sits in the big room electronica end of things, 'Fundamental Values' is a scatty, broken ambient journey to the edges of drum 'n' bass, 'Enters' opens on long, ambient refrains.

Review: In 2018, Nils Frahm initiated the "Encores" series: a trilogy of EPs exploring different aspects of his musical world. Here, those sets get gathered together on vinyl for the very first time. Listened to in sequence, it sees the Berlin-based pianist and composer offer up solo acoustic pieces for piano and harmonium (tracks 1 to 5), before layering up piano, processed field recordings and complimentary instrumentation on a suite of sublime ambient tracks (6 to 9). The final section of the album - originally "Encores 3" - sees him flip the script entirely, working almost exclusively with a combination of modular and analogue synthesizers and electronically processed voices. That the collection hangs together as a coherent album despite these stylistic shifts is testament to Frahm's abilities both as a performer and producer.

Review: Given his ubiquity over the last 12 months, it would be fair to call 2015 'the year of Nils Frahm'. His first release of 2016 is something of a curveball, featuring as it does new remixes of tracks from his 2012 full-length, Screws, an album that the artist says was inspired by "fans and friends". Fittingly, Screws Reworked not only contains Frahm's original album - a heartfelt, poignant collection of evocative piano compositions - but also a new disc of interpretations submitted by fans. By and large, these are excellent, and veer from dusty, spaced-out ambience (see Bug Lover's remix of "You", and Helios' string-drenched version of "Re") and hushed dub techno (the Soul Channel remake of "Mi"), to lilting modern classical (Sebastian Freij's take on "La"), and glistening, stripped-back electronica (the superb Analogue Dear interpretation of "Me").

Review: Classically trained pianist turned experimental composer Nils Frahm has previously been fairly prolific, so it's a surprise to find that Solo is his first album is some two years. As the title suggests, Solo is a wonderfully minimal, stripped back affair, full of rich, echo-laden recordings of Frahm sat playing his own piano compositions. He's a past master at creating evocative pieces with the minimal of instrumentation, and Solo is packed full of this kind of yearning, often melancholic fare. He doffs a cap to Steve Reich on the booming, circular chords and slowly shifting refrains of "Wall", while the soft focus "Immerse" is a 10-minute delight.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Record sleeve damaged/creased, some slight surface marks on LP1 product in working order***


Coming from a classical piano background, Nils Frahm has certainly turned into one dark dude! Having already released plenty of works on a myriad of labels, he lands on London-based Erase Tapes with what is probably one of his wildest pieces of music to date. Spanning 12 tracks in total, Frahm goes from joyful odes to the piano over to psychedelic synth improvisations to what sound like intricate tape manipulations, nutty drum-machine programming and a bag full o'field recordings. If you're into the idea of Tchaikovsky on some serious amounts of stimulants then look no further, this guy is shaping the way pianos are played...

Review: Coming from a classical piano background, Nils Frahm has certainly turned into one dark dude! Having already released plenty of works on a myriad of labels, he lands on London-based Erase Tapes with what is probably one of his wildest pieces of music to date. Spanning 12 tracks in total, Frahm goes from joyful odes to the piano over to psychedelic synth improvisations to what sound like intricate tape manipulations, nutty drum-machine programming and a bag full o'field recordings. If you're into the idea of Tchaikovsky on some serious amounts of stimulants then look no further, this guy is shaping the way pianos are played...

Review: Finally Nils Frahm’s classic album ‘The Bells’ sees a first vinyl edition in deluxe packaging incl. album download code

plus 3 Exclusive Bonus Tracks! Nils Frahm, born in 1982, had an early introduction to music. During his childhood

he was taught to play piano by Nahum Brodski – a student of the last scholar of Tschaikowski. It was through this

that Nils began to immerse himself in the styles of the classical pianists before him as well as contemporary

composers. Today Nils Frahm works as an accomplished composer and producer in Berlin. In early 2008 he founded

Durton Studio, where he has worked with Peter Broderick and Dustin O’ Halloran amongst other fellow musicians.

As the curator of the Swedish boutique label Kning Disk’s Piano Series, Peter Broderick invited Nils to record a new

album of piano improvisations – the result is 'The Bells', which will now be released on the London-based cinematic

music label Erased Tapes in the UK, Ireland and North America. Perhaps the most stunning aspect of what on the

surface appears to be an entirely pre-planned and composed body of work comes with the discovery that these

pieces were in fact improvised. These two friends share a common affinity in that they now be released on the

London-based cinematic music label Erased Tapes in the UK, Ireland and North America. Perhaps the most stunning

aspect of what on the surface appears to be an entirely pre-planned and composed body of work comes with the

discovery that these pieces were in fact improvised. These two friends share a common affinity in that they both

possess an absolute mastery of melody, composition and performance – able to deliver with devastating effect. The

modest Mr. Broderick states ‘I remember thinking to myself as I lay there stunned, that I could spend ten years

trying to write an amazing piece of piano music, and still it would never be half as good as these improvisations!’

Recorded in a rented, beautiful old church in the heart of Berlin over two nights, Nils ‘just played’ with the

occasional instruction from Peter ‘I spouted “Make a song using only the notes C, E, and G”, or "Make a song that

you could imagine me rapping over the top of" (Track 8 – ‘My Things’). At one point I was even inside the piano,

laying on the strings, asking him to make a song called ‘Peter Is Dead In The Piano’. The resultant work 'The Bells'

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shares the same excitement and air of playfulness. In contrast, his debut release 'Wintermusik' consists of three

piano led pieces, coloured with occasional celesta and reed organ parts. Most recently Frahm and Broderick reinterpreted

Pink Floyd’s ‘Is There Anybody Out There?’ for MOJO’s covermount CD ‘The Wall Rebuilt!’. According to

MOJO ‘Hamburg-born pianist Nils Frahm spent the last few years creating wondrous, haunting music. Together they

accentuate the orchestral qualities of Pink's lament, the track's sense of paranoia amplified by the choral resolution

of this version". For a musician this early in his career, Frahm displays an incredibly developed sense of control and

restraint in his work. As the recognition continues to grow for both releases, we are pleased to announce that 2010

will see his next album release on Erased Tapes. • The CD comes in a Deluxe Digisleeve containing a Free

Download Voucher for the brand new Erased Tapes Collection II.

PRESS: 'Hamburg-born pianist Nils Frahm spent the last few years creating wondrous, haunting music' – MOJO

'Already a recognised figure in musical circles, Nils Frahm is now gaining access to a wider audience with these two

releases. While The Bells and Wintermusik present different facets of his music, they above all showcase the man’s

exquisite talent and his perfect command of his art' (4.7/5) – The Milk Factory

Review: This mini-album from old friends Woodkid and Nils Frahm forms the soundtrack to Ellis, a short film about immigration and refugees starring Oscar-winner Robert De Niro. The latter's spoken word contribution to "Winter Morning II", a 16-minute piece built around Frahm and Woodkid's drowsy ambience and hazy, slowly evolving melody lines, is little less than breathtaking. De Niro boasts one of Hollywood's most iconic voices, and his delivery of director JR's poetic musings on the nature of immigration is next to perfect. The similarly heart-aching "Winter Morning 1" - in which Frahm's harpsichord and piano playing comes to the fore - feels hollow in comparison, but is still an emotional, atmospheric triumph.