German neoclassical composer Nils Frahm is the man behind Piano Day and is hailed as a gamechanger for the keyboard instrument with 88 keys. On Music for Animals, however, there is not one single note from a piano. “I’m impatiently waiting for the reviews to destroy this album.”
Who is Nils Frahm?
- Nils Frahm was born in 1982 in Hamburg. Father Klaus is a photographer and designs covers for the visionary German record label ECM. The son studies classical piano, but is equally fond of Miles Davis’ jazz, Brian Eno’s sound experimentation and Portishead’s trip hop
- He develops into the standard-bearer of neoclassical wave that mixes ambient, electronica and contemporary classical, and the flagship of Erased Tapes Records. Meanwhile, while filling up rock halls and theatres alike, he invents Piano Day, on the 88th day of the year
- He is known for his very physical playing that highlights the characteristics of the piano itself. He tackles the insides of his grand piano with a toilet brush. But on his latest album, recorded during the pandemic at his Funkhaus Studio in East Berlin, there is not a note from a piano
Nils Frahm made the piano cool again. He turned this unwieldy, antique tool into a hip instrument for a broad, non-classical audience that also likes electronics, but not being in a box. This he always did without much pretence and frills. “I have never been much of a showman,” he says from his Funkhaus Studio in Berlin a few days before the release of Music for Animals (and his 40th birthday).
“During concerts, I look exactly the same as I do during rehearsals.” It is part of a built-in nonconformism with which he manages to surprise his audience time and again. We still remember his previous performance in Brussels. Acrobatically shuttling between two islands full of instruments and equipment, simultaneously mashing his feet, eyes closed and sweating heavily, he allowed himself to be completely absorbed by his own musical universe, leaving his fans with no other choice. At Bozar, he will soon be turning up new versions of old songs alongside solo piano stuff and all-new compositions and work from Music for Animals, the record he recorded with his wife during the pandemic and does not contain a single note from a piano.
Was making a record without piano a statement?
Nils Frahm: If that is how you want to see it, you can. But sometimes you enjoy playing the piano and sometimes, that need is not there and you let other things guide you. But this time, I didn’t even realise myself that there was barely any piano. Until a friend pointed out to me that there was no piano in it at all! Then I realised that he was right. (Laughs) Perhaps we should not have mentioned it in the press release. Then you might not even have noticed.
With all this technology, listeners barely know what they are really hearing anyway.
Frahm: Exactly, but that’s also what makes working with sound so interesting. At least it reminded me of the fact it doesn’t actually matter what you use to make music. Just as with “real” instruments, digital equipment allows you to use low notes, mid notes and high notes. A good sound mix is fundamentally the same as making a piano sound good: you have to make the low and middle notes loud enough while making sure the high notes are not too loud so that everything is balanced. To me, a piano is like a mixing board. Playing the piano or composing with synthesizers on a real mixing board generates exactly the same feeling.
I wanted to make music that was liberated from all the drama that people look for. Music for...the cosmos. Music that is ordinary, like water flowing or birds chirping
Each piece on Music for Animals lasts on average about 18 minutes . That length seems relevant somehow?
Frahm: Duke Ellington said the only thing that matters is whether it is good or not. For him, there was only good music and what he then called “other music”. Looking at it that way, length is also relative. You don’t judge a book by counting the number of pages. I think it’s a matter of mood: if the book has 1,000 pages, you know beforehand that it will be an epic adventure; if it has 50 pages, you know it could be over quickly.
I didn’t necessarily want to make a long record. I just didn’t know which pieces to cut out. After an hour-long improvisation with professional musicians, just like with my electronic project Nonkeen, I am left with maybe one minute that is usable after editing. But here I was playing with my wife Nina for the first time and the music developed very slowly. It was as if we were still rehearsing while improvising. That intensified the listening experience. Suddenly I saw the challenge of also listening at such a slow pace. That sounds crazy, as if only the length could give the tracks their foundation, but otherwise it would have felt unfinished.
Apart from her tender glass harmonica playing, what has your wife added to your palette more specifically?
Frahm: Flavour. But it’s actually easier to ask what she doesn’t add. Her strength was that she left out all unnecessary notes and immediately arrived at a point it takes many academically trained musicians 20 years of going in circles to end up at. I have played with a lot of people so I can kind of judge how good someone is. (Earnestly) Nina is a natural, one out of a million. During the pandemic, my wife was of course also the person I spent 99 per cent of my time with. You probably remember when jamming with “non-essential” contacts was banned.
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| Nils Frahm made the piano cool again, "though I have never been much of a showman," he says
But without the pandemic, you probably would never have had the time to make this record?
Frahm: You are absolutely right, but I was angry at the world making decisions as to what were necessary and non-necessary jobs. I immediately understood that my business model was at risk. And it still is. Live music is dying. We have seen what for decades was normal and safe shrivel up before our eyes. I also felt very strongly then that it might all be over. It was a difficult time, when everyone was sick or sad or depressed or anxious, and sometimes all at once. No one yet knew what the future would look like. Concert promoters changed jobs. The album was made in that context. My guiding principle was, what if I no longer had an audience and only made music I wanted to listen to myself?
Looking back on fifteen amazing years as a touring musician, with all those fans I could hug back then, I began to see my career as a gift. If with previous albums I was still doing a bit of career planning, I had completely abandoned that now. Feel free to call Music for Animals an artistic suicide. I am impatiently waiting for the reviews to massacre the music. I really hope they come. If they don’t come, I don’t know why there are still critics.
This is a record that people should hate...or love, whatever. I called the album Music for Animals because it is not meant for humans. I really don’t care if people will listen to it. I realise it is a terrible record and an additional argument for never buying another one of my records. (Laughs) But I am just as aware that for some it will be a sacred record that is therapeutic. Such a wide range of opinions is, in my opinion, a brilliant result.
The result is not an ocean of sound, but a babbling brook in which the flow is so slow that evolution can barely be heard. Where does this penchant for stillness come from?
Frahm: I wanted to make music that was liberated from all the drama that people look for, even in their music consumption. Call it music for...the cosmos, or at least for phenomena that are not awake to us humans. Music that is ordinary, like water flowing, wind blowing or birds chirping in your garden all day. Many will find that boring and wonder where the development goes. But I find it inspiring just listening to nature sounds or the sound of a city.
I have become very sensitive to all those little banal compositions of everyday life. To the extent that having to listen to an entire song on the radio almost kills me. Far too overwhelming, with all those added sugars and the caffeine. Why does it all have to be so intense, hectic, intrusive and emotional? To me, it sounds like an ocean of concentrate. Perhaps my hearing has changed in recent years and I can no longer listen to music that contains so much storytelling. Then I prefer to turn everything off, look through the window and listen to the birds.
You have one big advantage. In the pre-digital era, it would not have been possible to release three hours of music.
Frahm: True, and I think people should make more use of that freedom. Our thinking is still too much based on the old paradigms. But in the age of Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube, albums don’t have to be 48 minutes long. So let us experiment as well as laugh at the possibilities ahead. Let’s make things that are ridiculously short or ridiculously long. I have always encouraged people to go a bit further. Everyone will learn from it. People who hate my record might end up realising why such a long album doesn’t work for them. That too is a step forward. But you can’t take such a step if you are only going for calculated success, like so many artists do. I have never understood that, but I am also not in this business to achieve success. Especially now that my work is recognised, I don’t want to disappoint anyone by starting to conform.
At the end of your new album, the advice to listeners reads: “Do Dream.”
Frahm: There are different ways to interpret that title. You could say it like Homer Simpson: “Doh! Dream.” (Laughs) It is also an incitement to imagine something that is not there. If you are not happy here, dream about elsewhere. In our minds, we can travel in time and space, we can go beyond the speed of life. Music helps me to get that. It is a constant dialogue with my daydreams. That song was finalised in the last recording session. My wife and I then left for a long holiday to Spain and the mixing process began. The song marks a special moment that I have strong memories of. Even if the title is a bit pathetic, sticking to your daydreams is important.
Every fan knows that your albums are completely different from your live sets. How will you fit the new album into the tour, which takes you to Bozar more than three years after your two sold-out concerts at the Ancienne Belgique?
Frahm: I will have to rework the new songs anyway because Nina is not coming along. A glass harmonica cannot be amplified properly nor would it work with loud electronics. In a recording studio with headphones, everything sounds great, but live you have to cushion that with other instruments. Actually, I combine two jobs: recording records in the studio and worrying about how to fit pieces from them into my live projects, so that they come into their own on stage and I don’t get tired of them. That is always a struggle. I’ve kept 70 per cent of the All Melody set-up, including the instrument islands, for the new tour. I simply cannot get everything done in one place. (Laughs) And I was very pleased with the flow and dynamics of those concerts. Also, when your devices are scattered around the stage, the audience sees that you have to work a bit harder physically as a performer, and they enjoy that. Not because the fans are mean, but because it also intensifies their experience.
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