Day

Nils Frahm has unexpectedly shared a new collection of solo piano music: Recorded in the summer of 2022 in complete solitude and away from his studio at Berlin’s famed Funkhaus complex, Day is his first album since the epic three-hour ambient masterpiece ‘Music For Animals’.

The new collection may come as a surprise to those who, over the last decade, have watched Nils shift slowly away from the piano compositions with which he first made his name in favour of a nonetheless still-distinctive approach that’s considerably more instrumentally complex and intricately arranged. In addition, in 2021, having spent the early part of the pandemic arranging his archives, he released the 80 minute, 23-track ‘Old Friends New Friends’, a compilation of previously unreleased piano music intended to enable him to ”start over” with a clean slate. Judging from the extended, ambient nature of ‘Music For Animals’, it proved a successful gambit, but Nils has never been able to resist returning to his first love, and those who enjoyed earlier acclaimed albums like ‘The Bells’, ‘Felt’ and ‘Screws’ will once again revel in Day’s familiar, personal style.

Day, which contains six tracks, three over the six-minute mark, is the first in a pair of albums Nils has lined up for 2024. In keeping with their nature, however, he won’t be making a song and dance about the release. Instead, he’ll resume his ongoing world tour, which has already included fifteen sold-out dates at Berlin’s Funkhaus as well as a show at Athen’s Acropolis. It will continue with shows all over the world, among them several sold-out dates at London’s Barbican in July 2024, where he previously curated a weekend of music, film and art, Possibly Colliding, in 2016.