Berlin-based pianist and composer Nils Frahm didn't let a broken thumb slow him down. Instead of taking a forced sabbatical, that would've lasted months, he instead wrote 9 gorgeous miniatures for 9 fingers. 9 compositions for solo piano, unaccompanied and unadorned, the music is glacial and patient, resonant and laden with intention. He has absorbed the strengths of Satie's virulent strain, but ditched a lot of the frivolity the French are famous for. Anyone who got into either of Gonzales' solo piano records will be in heaven. Perfect music for window gazing, watching the oncoming fall.
Nils Frahm tends to be associated with what is called 'Neoclassical' music, sometimes known as 'Modern Classical' or maybe merely 'Ambient', but he has discarded a lot of the stylized elements, the clicks, cuts, groans and droans, to make something bare and timeless. The singularity of style is approaching, and we are reverting back to pure MUSIC: melody, harmony, rhythm. I foresee a renaissance in all things classic. You will begin to see trad jazz, chamber quartets, Baroque counterpoint. Everybody is mining the past, to become their truest selves, and its like we're living in a timeless void, devoid of genre restrictions and exclusivity. Everybody is trying to make their heart's music to the best of their abilities, and Nils Frahm has the chops and expertise to make an emotional statement, to conjure a mood. It is nice hear to something unaffected, unstylized. Honest and simple and very, very effective.
Screws, and anything on Erased Tapes really, is perfect reflective music for the abandoning summer, for the onset of Autumn. Frost creeps over the windows like a cataract, a lifetime of memories emerges from the sudden stillness and dark. The 9 songs of Screws can act as an amniotic cathedral of emotions, a holy temple of reverberation, recombinant sounds forming crystal shifting clouds of ringing piano beauty. It can bring tears to yr eyes, and peace to yr heart. It can quiet yr mind, it can make you a better person.
Nils Frahm writes beautiful music, which he is making available digitally for free, with hard copies available from Erased Tapes.
if yr in or around Portland, this evening, you can see Nils live, at Classic Pianos, with Marcus Fischer.
Nils Frahm with Marcus Fischer
Classic Pianos
3003 SE Milwaukie Ave.
Portland, Or 97202
