nils frahm. live.

who: nils frahm

when: 8 november 2011

where: band on the wall, manchester, uk

support: date palms, alexander tucker 

when i was sitting in my room on tuesday afternoon, mildly enjoying the chaos of shared student accommodation, i did what i´m doing pretty much every single day: checking all my favourite manchester venues to see what´s going on. once i came across nils frahm, there was literally a voice going off in my head, telling me to go and see him. i remembered my friends telling me about nils frahm a while ago. long story short, a ticket was booked and i soon headed to band on the wall.

the night was supposed to start with the us-band date palms, which it eventually did. after resolving some major technical problems, they began their set with delay of 25 minutes. date palms are gregg kowalsky and marielle jakobsons from oakland, california. according to their facebook page, they would describe their music as eastern psychedelic minimalism. they ended up playing a two song set, one of them 18 minutes, the other one 6 minutes long. i reckon they would´ve played at least one more song because a clarinet was also part of their set-up but it wasn´t used. while kowalsky provided the electronic music, jakobsons joined in with electric bass and violin. since neither one of them sang, i couldn´t help but think about the film “eat, pray, love” during their set. date palms´ music might as well have been the soundtrack for the scenes which play in india. it would´ve fitted perfectly at least.

up next was alexander tucker. originally from kent, he describes his music as a mix between experimental, blues and psychedelic. although you need a good pair of ears to hear the blues elements, the rest totally fits. his set basically consisted of one single song, at least there were no intermissions in between, which was roughly 40 minutes long. his music was completely electric, no real instruments were used. alexander tucker has got a wonderful voice which he sadly rarely used. wish he would´ve done a little more singing but since he was the only one who sang that night, it was definitely better than nothing.

i remember a few years ago when i first discovered jamie cullum and i told people how amazing he is, they all said that piano tunes are never good because they all sound like dinner music, especially when no one is singing. i was a little afraid that nils frahm would actually fit into this category because i haven´t checked him out before, he was only recommended to me by friends. but as it turned out, there was absolutely no reason to be worried and i´m frankly quite embarrassed now that i actually thought i might have to.

my knowledge of nils frahm was actually limited to the fact that he´s a fellow german and plays piano. so i went to band on the wall absolutely unprepared which was probably a good thing though. from the moment he came on stage, it felt like he put me (and probably the entire audience) under a spell.

after two beautiful piano pieces, he suddenly said “i also like the techno!” and began his third song by using synthesizers. didn´t matter, it absolutely fitted in there and was actually one of the highlights of the night. the second highlight followed right afterwards. nils introduced the prism quartet that consists of two violins, a cello and a viola. while they performed one of his songs on strings, nils took a seat in the audience, enjoying their interpretation of his original piano piece. he then joined the prism quartet for the fifth song of the set. according to nils, it was the first time he ever played live with strings and it was more improvised than anything else too, but nevertheless it worked out perfectly. it was simply wonderful and had probably quite a few people in tears. he played one more song as part of the original set, where he was joined by a young gentleman on the yamaha piano. and as if this wasn´t enough, he came back for an encore. his piano tunes have something magical, something mesmerizing to them that you just can´t explain. they´re basically one of the best soundtracks you can possibly put on during this time of the year.

nils frahm certainly knew how to impress. he may just be the best musician my friends ever recommended to me. and judging by the response he got for his beautiful live set, his fan base here in manchester sure is anything but small and definitely still growing. 

 nils frahm

 prism quartet

nils frahm is still on tour. make sure to check his website for a full list of dates.

his new record "felt" is out now on erased tapes.