Since 2012 Erased Tapes peers Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm have spent many hours together in their studios across Berlin and Reykjavik, freely improvising and occasionally capturing the music for their fans. The duo's sound is an astoundingly rich, tonally pure example of synth-driven experimentation, conceived and performed by two prolific collaborators.
During a session at Nils's Durton Studio in Berlin last summer the two specially invited photographer Alexander Schneider to capture one of their unique improvised sessions. Lasting long into the night, the pair gradually and organically formed several individual songs – each contributing to the narrative of a larger, transformative piece of music. Recorded in eight hours with no overdubs or edits, 'Trance Frendz' is a captivating journey through grand soundscapes and droning crescendos which crash and recede back, making way for delicate piano notes and swirling synthesizers.

Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm reveal a new 7” single titled ‘Life Story Love and Glory’ following on from their recently re-issued 2012 collaborative EP ‘Stare’.
Erased Tapes artists and friends Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm have separately carved out a musical career that defies genres both with their unique live shows and a loyal fan base that’s always eager to hear what their prolific output will bring.
Their latest collaborative 2-track release ‘Life Story Love and Glory’ is a live improv affair on two pianos, recorded in 2012 at Nils’s Durton Studio in Berlin. Fans may wonder why they have waited until 2015 to release these tracks, but having revealed a new website
you may think this may not be the end to their musical story this year.
“We would meet in Reykjavik or Berlin with the intention to share some days off work, hiking, swimming or eating pizza. That is great for a couple days, but after a while we would always end up back in the studio, fiddling with synths or pianos.” – Nils Frahm.
“You can hear in the beginning of ‘Life Story’ how I have already started playing the piano whilst Nils is still moving microphones around and preparing everything. It was all kept in!“ – Ólafur Arnalds.
‘Life Story Love and Glory’ will be released as a 7” on Erased Tapes – exclusively through record stores only on August 21, 2015 ahead of its digital release later on – as an ode to this classic and beloved format.

Happy
Piano Day!
—
and welcome to the first holiday
which celebrates the piano
What's this all about?
At the end of 2014 I had an immediate urge to release a solo piano album which I recorded some time ago, and I was looking for a specific occasion to do so. I wanted it to be a nice surprise for everyone, so I thought of a meaningful release date to begin with.
Seconds later it came to my mind: I was about to create my own holiday in order to come up with a reason for this release. Moreover, if I could be proud of something, then of being responsible for an annual celebration of the piano. And here comes the best bit, Piano Day will happen on the 88th day of the year, which most of the time is the 29th of March. Piano Day is intended to be the most joyful of all holidays.
My album –solo– can be downloaded in any desired format and can be listened to for free. For those who like the real thing, there is a vinyl and all other kinds of round discs available (sorry, these are not for free). It would be appreciated if you get this thing on vinyl, simply because it’s very nice looking and sounding! Anyways, this is all part of a fundraising enterprise for a very special piano project. So please read on for a bit …

Encores 2 is the second in a series of extended players meant as companions to the universally acclaimed album All Melody. While Encores 1 focused on an acoustic pallet of sounds with just a solo piano and harmonium, Encores 2 explores a more ambient landscape from the All Melody sessions, the pinnacle of which is the astral 12 minute showpiece Spells. Recorded through a well Nils Frahm found in an ancient house on Majorca, Encores 2 is at once unique but familiar; orbiting the universe of All Melody while inhabiting its own world.

Nils Frahm is a German musician, composer, and record producer based in Berlin. He is known for combining classical and electronic music and for an unconventional approach to the piano in which he mixes a grand piano, upright piano, Roland Juno-60, Rhodes piano, drum machines, and Moog Taurus.

When Nils Frahm kicked off his world tour at Funkhaus Berlin in January 2018 to bring his highly acclaimed studio album All Melody to the stage, an ambitious journey was just to begin: Over the next two years, Frahm played more than 180 sold-out performances, including the Sydney Opera House, LA’s Disney Hall, the Barbican in London, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, and several big festival stages around the globe. Yet the stunning setting of Funkhaus Berlin, renowned for its vintage grandeur and outstanding acoustics, and also home to Frahm’s magnificent studio where All Melody was recorded, had occupied a unique place in the artist's heart.
In December 2018, Nils Frahm eventually returned to Funkhaus Berlin to host another set of four shows, tickets sold out within hours. Frahm’s friend and film director Benoit Toulemonde — a collaborator since 2011 — captured the concerts on film, only using handheld cameras, and employing techniques he had mastered for the famous concert series La Blogotèque, which featured some of the world’s most popular artists.
Tripping with Nils Frahm is an illustration of Nils’s lauded ability as a composer and passionate live artist as well as the enchanting atmosphere of his captivating, and already legendary Funkhaus shows: An extraordinary musical trip – rare and exclusive, close and intimate, bringing a unique concert experience to the screen.
"It was about time to document my concerts in picture and sound, trying to freeze a moment of this period where my team and I were nomads, using any method of travel to play yet another show the next day. Maybe tonight is the night where everything works out perfectly and things fall into place?
Normally things go wrong with concerts, but by combining our favourite moments of four performances, we were able to achieve what I was trying to do in these two years of touring: getting it right!
When you hear the applause on the end of the film you should know that I was smiling happily, being a tad proud and feeling blessed to share these moments with you.
Much love, Nils"

“When I came back from the hospital with a broken thumb and listened to the recordings, I felt they were unfinished. I decided to put them aside and started to work on my small album, Screws. Many many other notes of the piano have been struck since these days, and before we all forget about this, I thought it would be a good moment to share these lullabies with you. I hope they help you stay all strong and calm in these days of solitude – despite the hardship, we can discover introspection and reflection unexpectedly. Who knows what it is good for. ”
— Much love, Nils

As a surprise release for Erased Tapes founder Robert Raths, label buddies Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm have collaborated for the first time ever. The pair have recorded an EP of ambient electroacoustic works called Stare. The release also features Anne Müller on cello with artwork by label-friend and in-house designer Torsten Posselt.
What started as a jam on old analogue synths at Nils’ Durton studio in Berlin, continued with a 4-day session at Óli´s E7 studio in Reykjavik. Ólafur explains, “the album became kind of an Iceland vs. Berlin thing. I think you can hear it very well in the sound (side a vs. side b) and that is the most interesting thing about this record for me: that subtle but significant different in the characteristics of the music two people made in Iceland against what the same two people made in Germany.” The project was kept secret until, “delivered the fully mastered record with finished artwork to Robert around the 5th anniversary of the label.”
‘a2’ is minimal and glacial. Like the EP artwork, it’s hazy … but precisely so.
There will be limited availability of Stare on Record Store Day 2012, April 21st, which just happens to coincide with the fifth anniversary of Erased Tapes - pre-order here.

Berlin-based contemporary composer Nils Frahm has built a steady reputation for his intimate, poignant piano recordings, yet they only reveal a fragment of what to expect from a Frahm concert. The artist’s heart lies in improvisation, in the magic of a moment where, inspired by the space and the audience, his fingers create new compositions loosely based around his familiar melodies.

Spaces is an ode to the joy of live performance. It expresses Frahm’s love for experimentation and answers the call from his fans for a record that truly reflects what they witness during his concerts. Breaking the convention of a traditional live release, the album was recorded over the course of two years in different locations and on various media, including old portable reel-to-reel recorders and cassette decks. These moments were later pieced together in his Durton Studio for what Frahm refers to as a collage of field recordings rather than a live album.

Spaces includes surprises such as the sound of a toilet brush banging on piano strings to create a dub-sounding track. The decision to select takes that include the sounds of people coughing and cell phones ringing make clear that his audience is an integral part of every performance. In his own words: “What I love most about playing in front of people has something to do with a certain kind of energy exchange. The attention and appreciation of my audience feeds back into my playing. It really seems as if there is a true and equal give and take between performer and listener, making me aware of how much I depend on my audience. And since the audience is different every night, the music being played will differ, too. Every space I performed in has its own magic and spirit.”

The album was mastered by the gifted hands of Mandy Parnell; its November release will be preceded by a string of West Coast shows in late September and celebrated with a special concert in New York City on November 25th.

Piano Day 2021 sees Nils Frahm surprise the world with his Erased Tapes debut. Wait, what? How? Anyone who has seen the trail blazing sonic pioneer live will know Nils likes to deadpan a joke. Graz is in fact the first studio album he recorded for the label back in 2009, that somehow remained a secret... until now.
Nils Frahm has quietly changed the musical landscape, reincarnating the centuries old figure of a pianist-composer for a new generation of music fans. As Nils’ word-of- mouth popularity grew and grew, so did the pop-culture profile of his instrument. He founded Piano Day with a team of like-minded friends in 2015 to help that process, some years releasing an album of piano recordings to celebrate one of humankind’s greatest inventions. Graz is one such record; an unheard snapshot of a young Nils recorded at Mumuth, the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, in 2009 as part of the thesis Conversations for Piano and Room produced by Thomas Geiger, Whilst at the time it was decided to keep the grand piano recordings from the Graz sessions locked away and instead focus on his close mic’ed, dampened piano explorations which would become his acclaimed studio album Felt in 2011, two of the pieces — most notably Hammers — lived on as part of his live set, and were expanded on and re-recorded as part of his breakthrough 2013 record Spaces (a collage of field recordings from concerts which broke the Fourth Wall and included audience coughs). Over his mercurial career, Nils has pushed and pulled at the boundaries and parameters of his prolific work like that. He’s physically changed his piano (the softened prepared strings of Felt) played with a modified body (Screws recorded with 9 fingers and a broken thumb) played with scale (Solo recorded on the 3.7 metre high Klavins M370) and with the different layers of formats (last year’s Tripping with Nils Frahm nested his studio setup inside a live performance, concert film and live album). Now with Graz he has found the final frontier for play: time itself and his own discography.
Graz is a moment of time at the very beginning of Nils’ quiet revolution. The essential genius is already evident; the harmonic language of classical, and the immediacy of jazz. Nils seems to pull down each idea moment by moment, gently, to not scare away the muse. He describes: “sometimes when you hear a piano, you might think it’s a conversation between a woman and a man. At the same time, it can hint at shapes of the universe and describe how a black hole looks. You can make sounds that have no relation to anything we can measure.”
which received an award in the Classical Surround Recording category at the 127th AES Convention in New York.
A grand piano is a particular kind of beast to play, which will only sound refined and beautiful if you command a strong control over the keyboard. Each slight change in touch results in a different timbre, which will be rewarded when used wisely and will be your trapdoor when you fail to hold the horses. I remember how I had to squeeze the music out of the grand piano in the Graz sessions, and while I enjoy listening to it now, I kept these recordings secret for a good while – they sound like a much younger version of myself to me, and a lot of the musical expressions from that time would be impossible for me to replicate today. Close friends whom I had shared the record with reminded me of it once in a while, and some of the pieces got released in other versions on the album Spaces in the meantime. But somehow, any piece of music you create wants to get out there in order to find you, which is why I’m glad to share this beast with you and do hope you enjoy listening to it too! Love, Nils
credits
released March 29, 2021
All music written and played by Nils Frahm
at Mumuth, Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Graz as part of the thesis Conversations for Piano and Room Vocals on Hammers by Peter Broderick
Production and recording engineer Thomas Geiger
Recording assistant Linda Lüchtrath
Mixed by Nils Frahm at several places
Mastered by Zino Mikorey
Vinyl Cut by Andreas Kauffelt at Schnittstelle
Design by Studio Torsten Posselt
Photography by Sebastian Rieck
P&C 2021 Erased Tapes Records Ltd.
Published by Manners McDade Music Publishing Ltd.

Followers of the Sonic Pieces catalogue will already be familiar with the individuals of F.S.Blumm and Nils Frahm as well as their acclaimed work as a duo. But even though they’re making use of familiar instruments their new album Tag Eins Tag Zwei manages to add a new tone to their already unique language. By trading their post-processed sound sculptures that made up the two preceding albums in for intimate pieces of improvisation, this collaboration merges into the most soothing and life affirming recording the two have produced so far.
Guitars and toys are flowing next to piano and harmonium like an organic combination, shaping nine suits that abnegate any common categorization. Involving classical, jazz and folk influences it’s the genuine use of tricks and delays that lift these improvisations above the ordinary and makes them both incredibly relaxing and exciting at the same time. It is almost ironic that by capturing accidental moments of free playing, Frank and Nils are succeeding at an even more impressive scale than their already highly satisfying previous output.
The result delivers a perfect example of how immediacy can be the most powerful approach to creating music. Based on a remarkable understanding of each other’s phrasing the pair of sessions that comprises this album shows two vivid artists at the peak of their game: Unconditional spontaneity.

i am sitting in front of a sheet of paper. my right hand is bending over my left thumb. the first day i got out of my cast i could bend it by 15°. now i am already at 50° and that makes me happy. things are going uphill…
as you can imagine, it is really bad news for a pianist when he gets diagnosed with a broken thumb. that day i was sitting in the emergency room, feeling rather dizzy while thinking of a zillion shows coming up and all the people involved around it. i realised in that moment how busy things have become. it is hard to turn down interesting projects and opportunities, since i surely love my work. it actually never felt like work. playing piano and playing it for wonderful people is the greatest joy i can imagine.
for a couple of days i felt like this all could be over. how pathetic. but hey – also feeling sorry for yourself has its place somewhere. all of a sudden i had so much time, an unexpected holiday. i cancelled most of my schedule and found myself being a little bored. even though my doctor told me not to touch a piano for a while, i just couldn’t resist. i started playing a silent song with 4 fingers on my left and the remaining 5 on my right hand. i set up one microphone and recorded another tune every other night before falling asleep.
the day i got rid of my cast i had recorded 9 little tunes. they have helped me feel less annoyed about my accident and reminded me that any good is something i can only achieve, when i am making the most out of what i’ve got.
thank you all for listening!
with lots of love,
nils …
_________________________
September 20th marks the 30th birthday of Berlin pianist Nils Frahm, but also the day he has chosen to give his fans a special gift in the form of 9 songs he recorded with 9 fingers, entitled ‘Screws’.
Nils experienced an unfortunate accident which saw him fall from his bunk bed located directly above his studio, which resulted in a broken thumb. But through inspiration from his fans and after a gentle walk and talk through the park with a close friend, he decided to deal with the situation in the only way he knew – playing his piano.
With four screws surgically placed inside his thumb, he started recording with his remaining 9 fingers, what later resulted in 9 intimate piano recordings.

For the past two years, Nils Frahm has been building a brand new studio in Berlin to make his 7th studio album titled All Melody. Since the day Nils first encountered the impressive studio of a family friend, he had envisioned to create one of his own at such a large scale. Fast forward to the present day and Nils is now the proud host of Saal 3, part of the historical 1950s East German Funkhaus building beside the River Spree. It is here where he has spent most of his time deconstructing and reconstructing the entire space from the cabling and electricity to the woodwork, before moving on to the finer elements; building a pipe organ and creating a mixing desk all from scratch with the help of his friends. This is somewhere music can be nurtured and not neglected, and where he can somewhat fulfill his pursuit of presenting music to the world as close to his imagination as possible.
His previous albums have often been accompanied with a story, such as Felt (2011) where he placed felt upon the hammers of the piano out of courtesy to his neighbours when recording late at night in his old bedroom studio, and the following album Screws (2012) when injuring his thumb forced him to play with only nine fingers. His new album is born out of the freedom that his new environment provided, allowing Nils to explore without any restrictions and to keep it All about the Melody. Despite being confined within the majestic four walls of the Funkhaus, buried deep in its reverb chambers, or in an old dry well in Mallorca, All Melody is, in fact, proof that music is limitless, timeless, and reflects that of Nils’ own capabilities. From a boy’s dream to resetting the parameters of music itself.

Fascinated by the results of the ’Screws Reworked’ submissions, Nils selected nine reworks to feature on a special edition re-issue which will be released December 11th 2015 as a limited 2LP/2CD set that includes his original ‘Screws’ and as a standalone Download on Erased Tapes.
American composer Keith Kenniff, better known as Helios, Bug Lover from Hamburg und French artist Fred Yaddaden are amongst Nils’s final selection, housed in an inner sleeve carrying a visual rework created by Bertrand Sallé.
“Whenever you have to decide between two things, you end up favouring one over the other. In the case of this record, I had to choose nine out of hundreds of songs – but I didn’t want to follow this logic, I didn’t want the songs to compete against each other. I never liked music competitions, neither when I was a kid playing classical music contests nor today when the best album of 2015 is awarded. Having been in the situation to pick my own tracks for my own records, I knew that the only way to manage this tough job is to concentrate on the cohesiveness of listening to the songs all together. Screws Reworked should sound like a record, not like a random collection of tracks.
The motivation to make such a record came with the release of Screws in 2012 as a gift to my listeners. I thought about it as a starting point for people to make their own interpretations of the songs. The feedback was overwhelming. A couple of months later, we counted over 300 contributions. Without going through a selection process, they were all available only online until now. It seemed essential to make it a real record as I imagined how happy it must make those who would find their names – in most cases for the first time – on a real record.
Now is the time to thank you all for your numerous and beautiful contributions. In case you don’t find your track here, please don’t think it stands behind the others. This record means, in fact, that some of the most beautiful songs couldn’t be included as they simply weren’t ‘good neighbours’ and because there is only one rework for each of my original compositions. However all of you opened your hearts and minds and shared your uniqueness with us and I feel incredibly blessed by each and every single rework of Screws. Thank you!”
Nils Frahm

Nils Frahm is a German musician, composer, and record producer based in Berlin. He is known for combining classical and electronic music and for an unconventional approach to the piano in which he mixes a grand piano, upright piano, Roland Juno-60, Rhodes piano, drum machines, and Moog Taurus.

he name of the review copy was Nils Frahm ... Plays Piano, celeste, and reed organ. I thought, “oh no.” This sounded like a vanity project or low-budget new age disk, the kind that sells next to Sounds of the Humpback Whale at the Rite-Aid checkout counter. I was determined not to like it … but then I listened to it. Again and again. I began to realize that I really liked this disk, despite the title. Then I learned that the real title was Wintermusik. (A rose by any other name …) And that Peter Broderick, another artist whose music I admire, was also a fan; and that his reaction to Nils Frahm had been the same as mine. Here’s what Broderick had to say: “I laid back and pressed play, thinking I would fall asleep to the sound of some nice piano music. But the sound I heard was more than just nice. It was absolutely breathtaking, and it kept me awake staring at the ceiling until the CD was finished. Then I pressed play again.” Broderick and Frahm are now touring together, and the songs that Broderick had listened to were re-recorded under Broderick’s supervision and will soon be released on Kning Disk.
Wintermusik might have languished in obscurity as well, if not for Monique at Sonic Pieces, who happened upon the disk, fell in love with it and signed the artist for this limited release of 333. The handmade book binding is stark gray, but elegant, and suits the project well; Wintermusik was initially recorded as a Christmas present for family and friends. This puts the disk in the company of Sufjan Stevens' Songs for Christmas, recorded as a series of personal gifts over the years and finally packaged a few years later as a boxed set for fans. There’s certainly a light-hearted, holiday feeling to the music, especially when the bells join the proceedings; one thinks of happy carolers, wandering from house to starlit house as flurries dust their woolen caps. But this is not to say that one should avoid the disk simply because Christmas is half a year away; nor should one feel that the sounds herein represent any specific religion or creed. This is simply a disk of engaging, well-played music, suffused with a positive vibe.
Richard Allen

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.