Listening to the remarkable 'Nilam', it seems implausible now that its inception might ever have been in doubt. So astonishing is its stillness, so profound its communication of sentiment, it feels as if it was always meant to be. A celebration of the ties that bind, and possibly the most tender-hearted music we’ll hear this year, it’s intimate and honest, a poignant expression of gratitude for the blessings which keep us grounded, if only we’ll recognise and welcome them. Indeed, it could have been transmitted directly from soul to stereo, from the way ‘Not A Burden’ lifts a weight off the world’s shoulders to the peaceful ‘Sees Fire’, with ‘Land’’s gentle groove full of space, ‘Nine Jeweled Prayer’ serenely precious, and, throughout, GANAVYA’s vocals like ripples on a lagoon.

Yet the truth is it owes its existence to chance – an entity, like truth, to which GANAVYA is forever faithful – and the few days between her 2024 Berlin sold out debut and another sold out performance at London’s Union Chapel. This opportunity, she was persuaded by LEITER’s co-founder Felix Grimm, could be exploited to capture at last songs she had often performed live. And so, accompanied by long-time touring companions, bassist Max Ridley and harpist Charles Overton – with whom she’s toured over a decade, describing them as “two of [her] most precious friends and teachers” – she entered the hallowed Funkhaus with Frahm behind the desk.

'Nilam’s central theme, GANAVYA confesses, is “doing what we need to do to keep carrying on.” This perhaps isn’t surprising given her touring not one but two albums in a single year. Earlier in 2024, she’d released the equally acclaimed like the sky i've been too quiet, recorded with Shabaka Hutchings, and a debut single for LEITER, ‘Draw Something Beautiful’, arrived soon after in July. “I feel like I barely made it out this past touring cycle,” she says. “Some days are good, and some days are bad. But the actual singing is always good. I realised, with every bone in my body, that unless you absolutely, absolutely want to be a musician, there's just no sense doing this professionally. And still... I wake up every day and I am certain that I want to keep singing.”

'Nilam' takes its title from “nil”, the Tamil word for ‘land’, a decision made instinctively, and not just because firm ground was what she was seeking during a difficult period of touring. “The word ‘nil’ can be a command either to move or to stay still,” GANAVYA points out. “To the person being senselessly quiet, it is a command to stand up for what is right. To the person being senselessly loud, it is a command to stand still. To me, it is balance, the heart of the true rhythm of life, of change, of land, of landing.” All the same, the word perfectly describes these songs she’s played, on and off, across the years with Ridley and Overton. “The world changes and shifts and everything becomes dizzying as the earth keeps disappearing from under you,” she concludes, “but these songs have always been a place for me to stand, a place for us to be in a way that I don't really know how to describe. Music has always been the one true land...”

TRACK LISTING

1. LAND
2. SONG FOR SAD TIMES
3. NOT A BURDEN
4. SINATHAVAR MUDIKKUM
5. NINE JEWELED PRAYER
6. PASAYADAN
7. SEES FIRE

Nils Frahm has fulfilled last year’s promise to follow up 'Day', the collection of solo piano music he released last March, with 'Night'. 'Night & Day', includes all eleven tracks from both 'Day' and 'Night' in this nifty little set - lovely stuff

TRACK LISTING

1. WESEN
2. MONUMENTS AGAIN
3. KANTEN
4. LISTENING OVER
5. CANTON
6. YOU NAME IT
7. TUESDAYS
8. BUTTER NOTES
9. HANDS ON
10. CHANGES
11. TOWARDS ZERO

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'.

'Night' opens at a glacial pace with ‘Wesen’, giving notice of the more subdued nature at the heart of this thirty-minute collection. It conjures images of Frahm, lit only by a candle, huddled over his instrument, playing for the sheer companionship that it offers, while also prompting acknowledgement of his ability to tease affecting melodies from minimal means. ‘Monuments Again’ is more immediately accessible, its subtly jazzy nature disguising a gentle melancholy, with Frahm’s fingers dancing over the keyboard with increasing intensity until, at its conclusion, he reiterates its central theme.

Despite its name, ‘Kanten’ – ‘Angles’ in English – is a more traditional affair, a timeless piece of solo chamber music devoted early on to the piano’s lower keys, lending it not so much a sense of menace as a measure of foreboding, at least until Frahm’s right hand takes up the quietly uplifting, melodic initiative. The eight-minute long ‘Listening Over’ also feels initially like a more formal affair, distinguished as much by quiet trills as enviable patience, Frahm often hesitating carefully over its notes, ultimately evoking a sense of relief without the normally attendant tension.

If, however, there’s been a certain air of darkness up to this point, 'Night' closes with ‘Canton’, its delicious airiness perhaps the record’s equivalent of a glimpse of dawn, its tender melody like the day’s first sunbeams peeking over the horizon. It’s a perfect conclusion to a typically beguiling collection that, as always, points to a musical character that is immediately, distinctively Frahm’s.

It also highlights why the German pianist has continued throughout his career to return loyally to the piano as his first love. After all, 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.

TRACK LISTING

1. WESEN
2. MONUMENTS AGAIN
3. KANTEN
4. LISTENING OVER
5. CANTON

Described by the Wall Street Journal as “one of modern music’s most compelling vocalists,” New York-born and Tamil Nadu-raised singer and multi-instrumentalist GANAVYA has announced details of her new album, "Daughter of a Temple*", set to be released on November 15, 2024. The album follows her performance at SAULT’s acclaimed live debut in London in 2023, where, according to The Guardian, her “voice had a delicate emotive heft that could turn stoics into sobbing wrecks.” Her first single for LEITER, "draw something beautiful," was released earlier this year in July.

For "Daughter of a Temple", GANAVYA invited over 30 artists from various disciplines to a ritual gathering in Houston. Consequently, the album features numerous contributors, including renowned musicians such as esperanza spalding, Vijay Iyer, Shabaka Hutchings, Immanuel Wilkins, and Peter Sellars. The results—an innovative and deeply moving blend of spiritual jazz and South Asian devotional music—were initially recorded by Ryan Renteria and then further edited and mixed by Nils Frahm at LEITER's studio in Berlin in 2024. GANAVYA is the author and singer of the first Tamil text to win a Latin Grammy. She was a vocalist in Vijay Iyer’s Ritual Quartet and the soloist on Quincy Jones-produced „Tocororo", which reached No. 1 on the Jazz Charts. Her most recent album, "like the sky I’ve been too quiet", was recorded with Shabaka Hutchings and features guests like Floating Points, Tom Herbert, Carlos Niño, and Leafcutter John.

TRACK LISTING

1. A LOVE CHANT (FEAT. ESPERANZA SPALDING)
2. OM SUPREME (FEAT. VIJAY IYER & IMMANUEL WILKINS)
3. PREMA MUDITHA (FEAT. SHABAKA HUTCHINGS)
4. ELDERS WAYNE AND CAROLINA
5. OM NAMAH SIVAYA (FEAT. CHARLES OVERTON & GANESAN DORAISWAMY)
6. JOURNEY IN SATCHIDANANDA / GHANA NILA
7. A LOVE SUPREME, PART 1: ISHMAEL WADADA LEO SMITH
8. A LOVE SUPREME, PART 2: PETER SELLARS (FEAT. PETER SELLARS)
9. A LOVE SUPREME, PART 3: ALICE COLTRANE
10. A LOVE SUPREME, PART 4: IONE (FEAT. IONE)

Anoushka Shankar, the acclaimed sitar player, producer and composer, has confirmed details of the third and final instalment of the trilogy of mini-albums she began with Chapter I: Forever, For Now in October 2023, and followed by the GRAMMY-nominated Chapter II: How Dark it Is Before Dawn in April 2024.

‘Three chapters, three geographies,’ Shankar scribbled in a diary at a café in Goa on New Year’s Day two years ago, manifesting an ambitious trilogy that she hoped would span multiple geographies with nods to her roots, across continents and collaborators. Looking back now, it’s safe to say that the 11-time GRAMMY Award nominee has outdone herself. Chapter I was recorded in Berlin acknowledging Shankar’s European heritage (she was born and lives in London), while Chapter II was captured in California, where she moved aged 11 and lived for over 15 years. Central to Chapter III is the mindfulness of India at the root of all her music.

Shankar studied Indian Classical music in a deeply immersive fashion from her father Ravi Shankar. She also attended the British School in New Delhi as a kid. But it was only later as a teenager – when she found herself surrounded by friends from the music and fashion scene – that she forged more personal connections with the people and the land. This included a fascination for Goa Trance – India’s electronic music export to the rest of the world. In her twenties, Shankar escaped to the beach state to disappear from her touring and public life every New Year’s. She chased dance floor epiphanies in secret forest raves, participating with wild, youthful abandon, accompanied by its sibling feelings of positivity, hope, connection and joy. Think Inside Out: Millennial Goa Psy Edition.

That sets the template for Chapter III, where Shankar also holds steadfast in her desire to work with a different producer on each mini-album. Here, that responsibility falls to London-based, Indian multi-instrumentalist Sarathy Korwar, one of the most original and compelling voices in the British jazz scene. Shankar also decided that Korwar would help to ground the release and round out the symbolism around working with the album’s third key collaborator, composer and sarod player Alam Khan, son of the famed Indian classical guru, Ali Akbar Khan.

Let’s shift the weight of history out of the room first: Anoushka Shankar and Alam Khan belong to two of India’s most legendary – there’s really no other word for it – musical families. Their fathers, Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, were both renowned disciples of the legendary guru Baba Alauddin Khan (he is regarded as one of India’s greatest ever musicians). They trained side-by-side within the rigorous Maihar gharana tradition. Their electrifying, soul-stirring performances set a foundation in Indian music history, soundtracking the emergence of a fledgeling nation. Shankar and Khan established their own influential legacies, developing a unique vocabulary for their respective instruments.

Anoushka and Alam have witnessed this swirl of Indian classical and contemporary music history at close quarters. They’ve known, or at the very least, contemplated at an early age that this moment would arrive when they’d have to broach the C word (collaboration): think of it as a carefully nuanced coming-of-age musical narrative, at least in the eyes of their late fathers. Chapter III goes beyond the portraits of the spaces their fathers occupy. It’s circling back to and honouring their roots without being overshadowed by them.

Daybreak, the opening song, sets the joyful tone with its repeating grooves and rhythms, for the listener to really sit in that celebration. It’s the upward curve of an emotional cycle, moving into a new space where old triggers have lost their impact. Hiraeth, the first song the trio worked on together, features looping melodies and backwards sarod lines, an idea seeded by Khan and developed with Korwar and Shankar. For keen listeners, it features an Easter egg in the form of Raga Palas Kafi, created by Ravi Shankar. Similarly, Dancing on Scorched Earth sees the artists locking into each other’s rhythms, radiating a collective intensity built on a foundation of hypnotic simplicity. “I discovered my love of a POG pedal on this track to really enjoy that lower octave crunchiness on my sitar,” says Shankar.

On Chapter III, Shankar fully embraces these kinds of techniques. Looping and bending sound through technology has enabled her to add another dimension to her voice. Shankar has been pushing and reclaiming a distinctly Indo-futurist vision of the sitar. She operates outside of Western definitions of ‘neoclassical’ and even further away from sub-continental norms of ‘fusion’, a dated, catch-all banner for collaborative, experimental music.

We Burn So Brightly picks up the heat from Dancing on Scorched Earth – it’s the energy of alchemy that burns through the heat of the morning to bring about change through the act of dancing, shouting and movement. The trilogy closes with We Return to Love, based on one of Shankar’s favourite ragas, Manj Khamaj, played on a beautiful major scale with a twinge of nostalgia. It was made famous by Shankar and Khan’s fathers who famously concluded many concerts and recordings with it.

This is where the story ends, where the music returns to ancestral echoes while carving a path for modern Indian sounds, where all three artists step into a space of deep-rooted celebration. If the lasting image of Forever, For Now is the memory of that enchanting afternoon in Shankar’s garden, her son drowsy in her lap, We Return to Light’s final frame is of someone stepping out from a forest rave into the quietude of a shoreline. The feeling is a mix of nostalgia and renewal. It echoes Shankar’s journey through those Goa raves where all you could do was follow a sign and a person, except it’s now Shankar who is signposting the listener. In We Return to Light, our feet meet the water, marking the end of a journey, a return to love, and a place of rest—a perfect, radiant conclusion to the trilogy.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Shankar hits a perfect mid-point between psychedelic, beat-driven Goa psytrance and propulsive indian dance music. With Sarathy Korwar at the helm, it's a perfectly relayed fusion that hits all the right receptors. Lovely.

TRACK LISTING

1. DAYBREAK
2. HIRAETH
3. DANCING ON SCORCHED EARTH
4. WE BURN SO BRIGHTLY
5. AMRITA
6. WE RETURN TO LOVE

Berlin’s Moses Yoofee Trio release their debut full-length, MYT on Nils Frahm’s LEITER. The German group recorded much of the album over ten days in April 2024 at Glaswald Studios, in the countryside outside Stuttgart, before returning to Berlin to polish the results and record two further tracks at LEITER’s Funkhaus studio. Available on vinyl and via all digital platforms, the album was produced by the trio with long-time collaborator and mixing engineer oh.no.ty.

Before coming together as a band, all three members were already deeply involved in the music scene, touring, recording, and producing for a wide range of artists and bands. They connected in 2020 when Moses met Roman at Berlin’s Jazz Institute, and it was the latter who suggested they jam with his friend Noah, who was living in southern Germany at the time but frequently visited Berlin. Amid the extended lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic, the trio embraced the chance to fully immerse themselves in the creative process.

Since then, Moses Yoofee Trio have cultivated an extraordinary reputation for their shows, and this year they won the German Jazz Prize’s prestigious Live Act of The Year award. Recent highlights include a 2,500-capacity Elbjazz Festival booking beside Hamburg’s harbour, a riotous appearance at London’s Jazz Festival, and an intimate gig before 200 people at the German capital’s now redundant Tempelhof Airport on the rooftop of an air traffic control tower.

Despite their own work as a trio, all three musicians remain busy elsewhere, with Moses, like Roman, often working with chart-topping Berlin-based Peter Fox, a frontman for reggae/dancehall/hip hop crossover act SEEED, and accompanying him on his extensive solo tours. Noah, meanwhile, plays with another renowned artist, German-American rapper Casper, as well as Sweden’s acclaimed Petter Eldh and German comedian / actor / musician Teddy Teclebrhan.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: There's much to love here for fans of electronic jazz like Gogo Penguin or Portico quartet, with the talented German trio lending a little more frenetic action than those two. Despite the fast moving (and impeccably played) percussion, it never feels too far from a melody or too abstracted from the main tonal message for my (admittedly jazz-delicate) tastes.

TRACK LISTING

1. INTO YOU
2. RIDGEWALK
3. GREEN LIGHT
4. BOND
5. GEMINI
6. TILL TOMORROW
7. APR4 SESSION (Take 2)
8. TRUST
9. PUSH
10. SHOW ME HOW
11. DEEP
12. THIS COULD BE THE END
13. WHIP.wav

Recorded one and a half years after his magnum opus Music For Animals—described by PopMatters as “a musical waterfall of monumental proportions”—Nils Frahm shares a new live album, due for release by his LEITER label on December 6. In what’s becoming a tradition, it follows 2013’s Spaces, a Pitchfork Album of the Year taped at shows over the preceding 18 months, and 2020’s Tripping With Nils Frahm, also released as a film. The latter, arriving in the wake of 2019’s All Melody and its 2020 companion, All Encores, was recorded during shows in Berlin’s grandiose Funkhaus Saal 1, once the largest studio in the former GDR’s radio complex. Paris, nonetheless, is Frahm’s first live album from a single night, March 21, 2024, and contains ten tracks over a running time of 84 minutes

Frahm’s performances have always been known for expanding upon his studio recordings, and Paris is no exception. Drawing on his substantial catalogue, the German composer and producer reworks tracks from Music For Animals (‘Right Right Right’ and ‘Briefly’) before less recent material from 2009’s The Bells (‘Some’, also included on 2015’s Solo), and 2012’s Screws (‘Re’, originally recorded with just nine fingers after Frahm broke a thumb). There’s also ‘Spells’ from All Encores and ‘You Name It’ from this year’s solo piano album, Day, while the brand new, luxurious and strangely gripping ‘Opera’ sets the stage for ‘On The Roof’ from his heart-rending, award-winning score for 2015’s widely acclaimed, one-camera, one-take German thriller, Victoria.

Having first come to prominence with delicate vignettes for piano, Frahm’s instrumental range has expanded to include a mountain of vintage synths and keyboard instruments. These include a custom-made organ as well as the final glass harmonica constructed by Gerhard Finkenbeiner, a master glassblower who, in the 1980s, resurrected the instrument – first invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761 – and then died in 1999 in mysterious, still unresolved circumstances. Frahm’s grasp of dynamics and tension has likewise expanded, and not only does he reinvigorate his work during concerts for this wider range of possibilities, but he also keeps developing it as he tours.

If he leaves the stage to the same uproarious jubilation with which he was initially greeted, Paris makes it clear why he’s been so in demand. He’s been booked, frequently for multiple nights, at halls around the world, including Sydney’s Opera House, London’s Barbican and LA’s Orpheum Theatre. Indeed, the LA Times wrote of Tripping With Nils Frahm, “Watching him at work, and hearing the audience react, is a little like watching an athlete at the top of his game.” Expect nothing less from Nils Frahm on Paris, a vital document of this ingenious, gifted musician’s endless pursuit of fresh perspectives.

“A masterful kaleidoscopic mix of music... one of the greatest concert experiences in years.“ Gaffa DK

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another spellbinding live document from one of the most legendary modern classical performers in the world right now. Nils Frahm never puts on a bad show, so hearing such a pristinely recorded document of one of his most legendary live shows is understandably, incredibly exciting. Amazing stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Prolog
2. Right Right Right
3. Briefly
4. You Name It
5. Some
6. Re
7. Spells
8. Opera
9. Our Own Roof
10. Hammers

Acclaimed pianist Joep Beving and cellist Maarten Vos share their first collaborative album, vision of contentment, via Nils Frahm’s LEITER label. It follows work together on 2019’s Henosis, Beving’s third album, which came about after the two musicians shared a bill in Amsterdam in 2018. Mixed by Frahm at LEITER studio in the German capital’s famed Funkhaus complex, the LP contains eight brand new compositions and is available on vinyl as well as via all digital platforms.

While Beving’s never recorded an entire album with another artist before, Vos has regularly engaged in such activities, sharing credits with artists such as Julianna Barwick, Nicolas Godin (AIR) and Alex Smoke. For Beving, it was a natural step to take, and arguably overdue. “Doing an album from scratch as a joint project was something Maarten and I wanted to try for a while now,” he says. “When my deal came to an end, we saw an opportunity to start making music. I’m always trying to create small worlds for the listener to temporarily live in. Working with Maarten and Nils has helped immensely in achieving this. Maarten is a sculptor of sound and Nils is, well...the master of sound!”

Most of vision of contentment was written and recorded during July, 2023, after Beving and Vos unpacked their gear – recording equipment, various synths, a cello – to join the upright piano awaiting them in de berenpan, a shed hidden away in the forest outside Bilthoven, a small village in the Dutch province of Utrecht. The friends had already spent time together in Beving’s Amsterdam studio as well as Vos’ Funkhaus setup, sessions from which two further album tracks are taken, but their week in the countryside would prove particularly fruitful, if for uncomfortably poignant reasons. Out of their sometimes-sombre work emerged a universal eulogy to what the pianist calls “Finding comfort in the acceptance of the inevitable,” but the album represents far more than this. It’s also an astonishing personal tribute to Mark Brounen, their friend and, in Beving’s case, manager.

Vos considers the haunting sounds of vision of contentment “a sonic landscape that encourages imaginative exploration”, and the duo talk of Morten Feldman as a musical guide, and Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto as ‘mentors’. Beving, meanwhile, says he intends to leave listeners with a simple sense of love, adding that he hopes it will also enable “a search for harmony and understanding” that also delivers “a big fuck you to fascists and fear!”

Transitions are a theme on vision of contentment, not least because, by the time Beving and Vos had settled down in the woods, their friend Brounen had been fighting cancer for three years. And yet, if his imminent ‘passing over’ cast a shadow upon proceedings, it’s wasn’t exclusively a cause for sadness. “The central theme here is the ‘Blue Hour’, the twilight,” Beving explains. “Transitioning from one state to the other, but also embracing the darkness. Mark had shown a remarkable way of dealing with his disease and impending end. He was at peace with his destiny.”

As touching an achievement as The Durutti Column’s A Paean to Wilson, Vini Reilly’s salute to his own manager and Factory Records’ boss Anthony Wilson, vision of contentment may be stylistically very different, but it’s similarly cathartic, spiritually awakening and ultimately full of love.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It makes sense that this is on Frahm's label, because not since Frahm's 'Felt' have I heard such a beautifully unassuming suite of tentative piano and in-the-room atmospherics. It's got moments of activity and dynamism, but the pace is beautifully managed and leaves a lot of thinking space for the listener too. Gorgeous.

TRACK LISTING

1. ON WHAT MUST BE
2. PENUMBRA
3. A NIGHT IN RENO
4. HADES
5. THE HERON
6. 02:07
7. VISION ON CONTENTMENT
8. THE BOAT

Nonkeen, the avant-garde musical collective comprising Nils Frahm, Frederic Gmeiner, and Sebastian Singwald, is gearing up for their long-awaited return with the upcoming album “All good?”. Renowned for their boundary-pushing soundscapes, Nonkeen captured global attention with their critically acclaimed 2016 albums, “The Gamble” and “Oddments of the Gamble”. The releases showcased their ability to seamlessly blend electronic, ambient, and experimental elements into a mesmerizing auditory experience.

The trio has been celebrated for their intricate compositions, intense live shows and a sonic palette that defies conventional genres. “All good?” promises to build on their established legacy, offering listeners another immersive journey into the uncharted realms of musical expression. 

TRACK LISTING

1. I'm Sure
2. That Love
3. Will Never
4. Be A
5. Product
6. Of Plasticity
7. Exclamation
8. Mark

Day may come as a surprise to those who, over the last decade, have watched Frahm 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 Frahm 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 Frahm 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.

The album is best enjoyed in the manner in which it was recorded, in the intimacy of a peaceful, cosy room. There are muffled pedal creaks on the cyclical, quietly jazzy ‘You Name It’ and, during the palliative ripples of ‘Butter Notes’’ arpeggios, the sound of dogs barking in the streets outside. The compassionate, hesitant ‘Tuesdays’ and emotionally ambiguous ‘Towards Zero’ linger with the poignant persistence of Harold Budd’s earliest work, while ‘Hands On’ is a sometimes brighter, airier tune that sets its own, deliberate pace, and, as he has on occasions before, ‘Changes’ sees Frahm employing elements of his instrument’s construction in a ‘prepared piano’ fashion.

Characterised by its confidential mood, Day confirms that, while Frahm is arguably now best known for elaborate, celebratory concerts calling upon an arsenal of pianos, organs, keyboards, synths, even a glass harmonica, he’s still a prolific master of affecting simplicity, tenderness and romance.

TRACK LISTING

1. You Name It
2. Tuesdays
3. Butter Notes
4. Hands On
5. Changes
6. Towards Zero