Deep Water

The new album 'Spaces' out now on CD/2xLP/Digital via Erased Tapes.

EU order link: http://www.erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP055
US order link: http://www.midheaven.com/item/spaces-by-frahm-nils-cd

9/10 Drowned In Sound · 9/10 Clash · 4.5/5 Fact · 4.5/5 Resident Advisor · 9/10 Popmatters · 9/10 The Line Of Best Fit · 8.5/10 Under The Radar · 8/10 Exclaim! ★★★★1/2 Music Omh · ★★★★ The Irish Times · ★★★★ Arts Desk

‘Frahm truly excels’ 9/10 Uncut 
‘Frahm works his magic’ ★★★★ Mojo
‘The infinite elasticity of sound’ 7.8 Pitchfork 
‘Improvisatory, wild, heartfelt’ Interview Magazine
‘A fantastic record’ The Guardian Album of the Week 
‘Frahm creates something mesmerising’ ★★★★ The Observer
‘My favourite new piece of music this year’ Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC 6 Music

erasedtapes.com · nilsfrahm.com

Spaces

Says

Buy 2xLP/CD/DL

Nils Frahm - Says

David Gilmour in Royal Albert Hall - Coming Back to Life

the Creme2laCreme crew (Raphael Top-Secret, Jerome Qpchan and Antoine Kogut) live in the mix at RedLightRadio in Amsterdam on  the 20th of November 2013, all originals vinyls except the Syracuse tracks on CD (min 24 and 42). Big Up to Orpheu and the RLR posse!

Raphael Top-Secret, Jérôme QPchan & Antoine Kogut @ RedLight Radio (11-20-2013)

‘The Broken Places’ starts off with a vocoder loop. See, when I’m making an album, I’ll tend to write about 300 songs and narrow it down to the 15 songs that are on the album, which isn’t to say that the songs that don’t make it onto the record aren’t any good. It’s not like 300 amazing songs and I have to get rid of 285 amazing songs. Some of them aren’t very good. 

This song ‘The Broken Places’ was a weird instrumental that I’d written that I liked and thus assumed no one else would like it. And I played it to a few friends and they were like “Ah actually that’s interesting”. The more I lived with it the more I liked it. And what I love, it’s quiet repetitive and almost every element in there is broken, which I guess in keeping with the title but it’s an old Korg vocoder that barely works. I forget what drum machine I used but one of those, I think it might have been a home made, there is this company from Ohio called Paia and I got a home made kit drum machine that someone built in the 70’s. Again, it just barely, barely works. 

So I felt like this was a broken down, sort of winsome, endearing, electronic piece of music. I needed to come with a title for it. That’s the tricky thing with instrumentals is what you call them. And this one, there is a Ernest Hemingway quote, which I think I’m paraphrasing but basically says, life breaks most of us and some of us are stronger at the broken places, and I’ve always loved that quote, which I’m paraphrasing. And so I liked that as an introductory album title for the album because it does sort of emotionally set the tone for the rest of the record. 

The one regret I have about that first song is the original version is about 8 minutes long and just keeps repeating for 8 minutes. And I was kind of a sissy and I thought that having an 8 minutes repetitive introductory song in an album was just a little too much to expect anyone to get through. So I was a sissy and I edited it down to 3.5 minutes. If anyone wants the full 8 minutes version I am happy to send it to them. 


The Broken Places

‘The Low Hum’ was another broken down electronic, instrumental track and I gave it to my friend Emily Zuzik and what’s funny is, I didn’t even tell her what the album was about the theme of music for empty cities at two o’clock in the morning and she basically wrote these lyrics about being in a hotel room at two o’clock in the morning in an empty city. 

So maybe she is psychic. I don’t know but it’s a song without a chorus, which I like. And her voice has this quiet sort of disembodied quality to it, which was really hard for her because she is a big singer. If it was up to her, she would have sang it broadway style but I wanted it to be that sort of disconcerting, warm, womb like quality, where the vocals are almost like someone singing to themselves instead of projecting for all the world to hear, it’s sort of like someone in a bath tub, in a hotel next to the Stuttgart train station at three o’clock in the morning singing to yourself in the bath tub. So vocally I think that’s what I was trying to get her to do.

The Low Hum

Flying Lotus // Massive Attack// vibeangel mix1

Shallow Anne

Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QQS8fJqXoI

Most synth sounds are the Juno 6, some soft synths used, and the drums are layered but the most present layer is a Roland 707.

Created this one in my bedroom while procrastinating rehearsal for a live set. 

March 2015

Olive // Video link in description

I made the music for this beautiful Alice Dunseath short in collaboration with cellist Lucy Railton. 

Check it out and subscribe to her channel, super cool stuff: https://youtu.be/8qArY4tLf3A﻿

In her words:

Space, forms, colours and sounds symbolise a recognisable world. 
New beginnings put an end to familiar patterns.
Do we shape as much as we are shaped?

You Could Sunbathe in this Storm // Video Link in Description

Solo Remains are previously unreleased tracks from Nils Frahm’s album Solo, which was recorded on the M370, the world’s largest piano, built by the visionary piano maker David Klavins in 1987.

Nils fell in love with the sound of this giant and joined David for the new project – building an even higher piano – the Model 450. The aim of it is to explore the not yet reached physical limits of the piano instrument and also to push forward into new musical dimensions. The M450 will be characterized by an even clearer sound with more depth and richness of overtones as well as an unrivaled frequency spectrum and intensity of sound and tone. In time for the 2nd anniversary of Piano Day, Nils decided to give four previously unreleased songs from that very session to his fans and supporters of the Klavins 450 project.

“In the end, every album production leaves you with the same tough task – making the choices for the final track selection. You leave out some tracks for various reasons: some of the tracks are wonderful by themselves, but they simple don’t fit anywhere in the album and others have to be left out because otherwise the vinyl would become too long for a cut in good quality. However, these outtakes are often as important as the final selection and I thought, they might be a great surprise for Piano Day too. I hope in this case, it’s both …”

Solo Remains is available for free download in 24-bit and mp3 format.
http://www.nilsfrahm.com/works/solo-remains/

Shimmering Moods @ Red Light Radio 19.9.2016
(Note: The crack in Bionulor "Furniture Music pt1" isn't originally in the music but caused by technical problems)

- E and I / 9 / Eilean
- Fescal / Preque (Wigoft's Re-construction of 'The Moon Flower Opens Its White, Trumpetlike Flowers At Eventide')/Wounded Wolf Private-Press
- Spheruleus / Glancing Down The Barrell / Whitelabrecs
- Hummingbird / Eemina (Unpopular Culture)/ Facture
- Siavash Amini + Zenjungle / Descending Days / Forthcoming Flaming Pines 
- Viewfound / Speaking Through Walls (Part 1)/ Forthcoming Shimmering Moods Records
- Benoît Pioulard / Noyaux / Morr Music
- Bionulor / Furniture Music pt 1 / Forthcoming Shimmering Moods Records
- Masayoshi Fujiita & Jan Jelinek / Parades / Faitiche
- Actress / Wee Bey / Werk Discs-Ninja Tune
- Asphodel / Aokigahara IIIB / Wounded Wolf Private-Press
- D.Å.R.F.D.H.S. / 	Minnen av morfar	/ Northern Electronics
- James Murray / Second Sight (Glanced)/ Forthcoming Home Normal
- Legiac / Inzantum Feaner / Dronarivm
- Convextion / Untitled B1 / Acido
- Aleks / SEQ / Unreleased Soundcloud
- Balsam / Sunshower / Forthcoming Shimmering Moods Records
- Nao Otsuka / Slide on iron / Forthcoming Shimmering Moods Records
- Toothlessbobby / Pool / Unreleased Soundcloud
- Moby / Myopia / Instinct Records

Shimmering Moods @ Red Light Radio 19.9.2016

Live recorded at Liner Notes no 4 in Hamburg.
Hosted by Phuong Dan

http://redlightradio.net/liner-notes/liner-notes-12-prins-emanuel

Liner Notes 12: Prins Emanuel

KOSMOS @ Red Light Radio 01-23-2017

Ripped from the DVD - David Gilmour in Concert - Live at Robert Wyatt's Meltdown (2002).  I combined tracks 1 and 11 into one song.  I don't think any of this concert was released as audio only.  Enjoy.

http://www.amazon.com/David-Gilmour-Concert-Robert-Meltdown/dp/B00006LI4S/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1342813285&sr=8-10&keywords=david+gilmour

David Gilmour - Shine on you Crazy Diamond (Kind of Acoustic)

Download this song: http://jakechudnow.bandcamp.com/track/carlin-dream
Watch the video: http://youtu.be/HaOzCxSXScU

Context:

Asleep, dreaming, on a wintry night in 2011, bundled up in the bed of my Brooklyn apartment.

That's when and where I made this song. I remembered the soundtrack to my dream so vividly that when I woke up in the middle of the night, I got out of bed to recreate what was to become the beginnings of "Carlin Dream." It makes me wonder what buried corner of consciousness that melody came from, and why these sort of things come to people while they sleep. This isn't the first time I've dreamed of a melody and turned it into a song later.  I guess it's not totally crazy that we can dream music though: where do melodies come from while we're awake anyway? I'd bet it's the same place. 

As for this piece, I recently stumbled across the original music files and decided to build on that 3am stream of consciousness to finish it here, one year later.

Carlin Dream

Brian Eno - An Ending

I was excited to see this wonderful collection of little piano vignettes released by Nils, one of my favorite piano players and people. The simplicity of these pieces and the honesty I feel in the music communicated a sense of ease and exploration that I immediately connected with.  This is my rework of a beautiful passage contained in the song "Re". 

http://www.unseen-music.com

http://reworked.nilsfrahm.com/

Deep Water

Yuulman