Mega Playlist 3 - 2

I recorded an electric piano track on top of a live recording of Nils Frahm playing Fundamental Values.

Nils Frahm - Fundamental Values (ft. RaveAmok)

THYLACINE - Anatolia (Official Video)
https://youtu.be/By5kBezU_T0

@G - Anatolia Tribe [Bootleg]

Eden (Hania Rani)

The song usually known as “Fascination” – often linked with lyricist Dick Manning, whom you mention – began its life in 1904 as an instrumental waltz. Composed by Fermo Dante Marchetti and originally titled “Valse Tzigane”, it grew out of the last years of the Belle Époque: a Europe that was still dancing, still convinced of its own stability, unaware of how fragile everything really was. The waltz carries that world inside it – the elegance of polished floors, chandeliers, and swirling gowns, but also a faint, almost unconscious sadness, as if it already knows how quickly beauty can vanish.

At first, Fascination was simply a stylish salon piece, a “gypsy waltz” in 3/4 time that blended Italian lyricism with Parisian charm. Its melody is deceptively simple: it circles back on itself again and again, like a thought you can’t let go of, hovering between sweetness and a slight ache. A year later, the French actor and writer Maurice de Féraudy added lyrics, turning the waltz into a love song about the state its title names: that spellbound, slightly unreal feeling of being completely taken over by someone or something.

Decades afterward, in the 1950s, Dick Manning wrote the English lyrics that many listeners know today – the ones that speak of “it was fascination, I know”. By then the world had already been through two wars. What began as a pre‑war ballroom tune from 1904 had become a vessel for nostalgia, a musical postcard from an Old Europe that no longer existed. The song travelled through dance halls, cafés, Hollywood films, and countless living rooms, played on pianos and accordions, always carrying the same gentle sway and the same quiet promise of escape.

Placed in the context of Between The Wars, Fascination feels like a ghost from before the storm – a melody born in the glow of the early 20th century that kept playing while the world changed around it. It links the Belle Époque, the First World War, the interwar years and beyond, not through grand historical statements, but through something much smaller and more human: the simple act of two people turning in a circle on a dance floor.

In a felt‑piano interpretation, all of the ballroom glitter is stripped away. There is no orchestra, no sweeping strings, no murmuring crowd – only the bare waltz pattern in the left hand and the melody, close and unadorned, in the right. Slowed down, the piece stops sounding like an invitation to dance and starts sounding like someone remembering a dance that is long over. The lilt of 3/4 time is still there, but now it feels more like the rocking of a memory than the movement of a real room.

Without words, the idea of “fascination” changes. It is no longer the bright intoxication of first love, but something quieter: the way a particular evening, a face, or even a whole lost era can go on haunting you. Each return of the main theme feels like going back into the same memory from a slightly different angle, noticing new details – a light on the wall, a bit of laughter, the knowledge that you didn’t yet know how the story would end.

Heard this way, Fascination from 1904 becomes less a pretty old waltz and more a fragile bridge between times: from the optimism before the First World War, through the anxious calm between the wars, to the present moment in which someone sits at a piano and carefully, almost tenderly, lets that world surface again for a few minutes.

Fascinating 1904

Jon Hopkins - Feel First Life (Official Video)

Excerpt from Piano Day 2016

Recorded by Myles Mumford at Rolling Stock Recording Rooms

Eighty-Eight Days

Ambre (Nils Frahm)

Music is part of us, music is part of the universe. thanks to Lump Records for being part of this beauty.

Astralism

Demaso [Lump Records]

All Melody

Nils Frahm - My Friend the Forest

Brighton based producer Hollows with his reworking of Nils' track of the EP Encores 1, out now on Erased Tapes.

Nils Frahm The Roughest Trade (Hollows Rework)

September 20th marks the 30th birthday of Berlin pianist Nils Frahm, but also the day he has chosen to give his fans a special gift in the form of 9 songs he recorded with 9 fingers, entitled 'Screws'.

Nils experienced an unfortunate accident which saw him fall from his bunk bed located directly above his studio, which resulted in a broken thumb. But through inspiration from his fans and after a gentle walk and talk through the park with a close friend, he decided to deal with the situation in the only way he knew – playing his piano.

With four screws surgically placed inside his thumb, he started recording with his remaining 9 fingers, what later resulted in 9 intimate piano recordings.

Fans can download 'Screws' as mp3s or in full 24-bit 44.100 kHz audio quality here (http://screws.durtonstudio.com), and pre-order a Vinyl/CD edition from the Erased Tapes online store (http://erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP046), which will be released later this year.

'I am sitting in front of a sheet of paper. My right hand is bending over my left thumb. The first day I got out of my cast I could bend it by 15°. Now I am already at 50° and that makes me happy. Things are going uphill...

As you can imagine, it is really bad news for a pianist when he gets diagnosed with a broken thumb. That day I was sitting in the emergency room, feeling rather dizzy while thinking of a zillion shows coming up and all the people involved around it. I realised in that moment how busy things have become. It is hard to turn down interesting projects and opportunities, since I surely love my work. It actually never felt like work. Playing piano and playing it for wonderful people is the greatest joy I can imagine.

For a couple of days I felt like this all could be over. How pathetic. But hey – also feeling sorry for yourself has its place somewhere. All of a sudden I had so much time, an unexpected holiday. I cancelled most of my schedule and found myself being a little bored. Even though my doctor told me not to touch a piano for a while, I just couldn't resist. I started playing a silent song with 4 fingers on my left and the remaining 5 on my right hand. I set up one microphone and recorded another tune every other night before falling asleep.

The day I got rid of my cast I had recorded 9 little tunes. They have helped me feel less annoyed about my accident and reminded me that any good is something I can only achieve, when I am making the most out of what I've got.

Thank you all for listening!

With lots of love,

Nils


9FINGERS North American Tour 2012

09/16 New York (US) – West Park Presbyterian Church 
09/21 Boulder (US) – Cherryvale Studios
09/22 Colorado Springs (US) – The Mesa
09/23 Santa Fe (US) – O'Shaughnessy Performance Space @ Santa Fe Uni
09/24 San Fransisco (US) – private show (RSVP only)
09/29 Seattle (US) – Decibel Festival @ Broadway Performance Hall
09/30 Portland (US) – Classic Pianos
10/03 Mexico City (MX) – Mutek

ERASED TAPES 5th Anniversary Tour w/ Ólafur Arnalds & A Winged Victory For The Sullen

10/08 HAMBURG (DE) – Fliegende Bauten
10/09 PRAGUE (CZ) – Palac Akropolis
10/10 BUDAPEST (HU) – Trafo
10/11 MANNHEIM (DE) – Alte Feuerwache
10/13-14 BERLIN (DE) – Radialsystem
10/15 AMSTERDAM (NL) – Paradiso
10/16-17 LEUVEN (BE) – Stuk
10/18 LONDON (UK) – Hackney Empire
10/19-20 ISTANBUL (TR) – Salon IKSV

PREVIOUS PRESS:

'No. 42 Best Albums Of 2011' -The Guardian
'Felt is a transportative album, a balm for troubled minds.' BBC Music
'Frahm’s hyper-intimate recording technique for the album makes Felt a captivating listen' (9/10) DIS

★ ★ ★ ★ – Popmatters ★ ★ ★ ★ – Uncut ★ ★ ★ ★ – Clash ★ ★ ★ ★ – Mojo

OFFICIAL WEBSITES: screws.durtonstudio.com · facebook.com/nilsfrahm · twitter.com/nilsfrahm · erasedtapes.com

Screws

Buy CD/LP/DL

Nils Frahm - Re

Music For Dreams releases https://soundcloud.com/tolgabuyuk 'Dimitro' the second single off Kaybola (which means to get lost to find a new way), from their forthcoming sophomore LP. The record is chock full of ethno-cultural material from Japan to Bulgaria, including field recordings of Tuva, Central Asia throat singers. Shamanic rhythms were introduced to nomadic guitars, combining with compact electronic structures, finally transforming into dance movements of a tribe that no one knew and emerged as 'KAYBOLA'.

An intoxicating mix of experimental electronics punctuated by distinctly Turkish instrumentation.

https://orcd.co/dimitro

Connect with Music For Dreams
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islandman - Dimitro - 0175

This is a jazz song by Jakob Bro that I really like. So I played and sang it a little.

Heroines (By Jakob Bro)

Kelpe - All The Way Round (Photay Remix)

WOVEN SONG | OLAFUR ARNALDS(COVER)

There is something deeply moving and profound in Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnald's music. Music of serenity and melancholy. I made this cover of one of his latest pieces on his new album that is really just released. I find something in this song that conjures up deep emotions for me. In the original Ólafur has used a recording of a Rainforest tribe singing what seems to be a lullaby...

In his words:
“Woven Song” features a piano alongside Amazonian tribal chanting, which has a connection to me as I have friends who are from the same tribe. I always want my instruments to be very soft and quiet, as I feel more comfortable and free to explore them musically. When it’s so quiet, you have to put the microphone close and then you start hearing the mechanical action and creaking–even from the piano stool. It’s a wonderful side effect. When I’d finished this track, I knew exactly what this album needed to be.

– Ólafur Arnalds

https://youtu.be/oOsuploHPjk

I hope you'll enjoy this little and humble cover of this beautiful music, please check Ólafur's music out, it's wonderful.  As always I really enjoy your comments, likes and share. Thank you!

-Dan

Data:
Original music by Ólafur Arnalds, arranged for three guitars by Daniël van den Berg, December 28, 2020
Guitar: Joan Cashimira, modelo 145, spruce top w/ cocobolo sides and back, Gata de Gorgos (Alicante), 2015
Recorded using an Apogee MiC.
Mixed in Auria, masterered in Auria and Final Touch.
Photo edit by Dan van den Berg, 2020

Nils Frahm - My Friend the Forest

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