Night

Nils Frahm fulfills last year’s promise to follow up ‘Day’, the collection of solo piano music he released last March. ‘Night’, which contains five new tracks, is available on vinyl, digitally, and as a special CD edition — ‘Night & Day’ — combining both albums in one release. These follow Frahm’s latest live album, ‘Paris’, which was released in December last year.

Frahm recorded the pieces on ‘Night’ on the Klavins M450 piano, installed in his studio at the renowned Funkhaus complex in Berlin. It was built by German-Latvian piano maker David Klavins for the first Piano Day in 2015, a celebration that will mark its 10th anniversary this March. At 4.5 meters tall and weighing over a tonne, the model was the largest upright piano in the world at the time. The record is a reminder that, although he has since become celebrated for the complex, intricate arrangements of his most commercially successful multi-instrumental albums, Frahm first made his name with similarly meditative piano compositions on albums like 2009’s The Bells, 2011’s Felt and 2012’s Screws.

It’s notable that, even during his recent, expansive live performances, which find him leaping between multiple keyboards, synths, and even a glass harmonica, Frahm has always made space for such works. That’s something documented on the likes of 2013’s Spaces, where ‘Said And Done’ is a highlight, and last year’s Paris, during which ‘You Name It’ – itself taken from Day – ‘Some’ and ‘Re’ provide a crucial interlude between his more demanding, grandiose works.

‘Night’, like Day, confirms that Frahm remains a prolific master of affecting simplicity, tenderness and romance, and as capable as ever of unforgettable, epigrammatic succinctness.