(2021) Nils Frahm - Graz


Review:
Nils Frahm releasing a surprise new album, called Graz. It’s named for the city in Austria where all nine tracks were recorded more than a decade ago, in 2009, when Frahm was 26. Most of the record has remained unheard since it was first laid down over three intense days of solo sessions. Frahm, isolated with just a grand piano and space to breathe, says that he was determined to make something of the opportunity to be alone with his instrument and a raft of quality microphones. Fans will recognise “Hammers”, which has taken on a life of its own as a live track, but otherwise these plaintive, delicate solo pieces will mostly be new to the listener – even if the stir of melancholy in Frahm’s sparing strokes of the keys on tracks like “Crossings” and “Lighter” might sound familiar. It’s a strangely fitting time for the album’s emergence: almost a year to the day since many countries around the world began to lock down, and isolation (and living via computer screens) became a daily norm. Many are now beginning to peek out at the possibility of a return to something like the way things once were. Others seek new beginnings. The moment is not lost on Frahm. In December last year, he said: “When you read my eventual biography, it will start at 26.” Listening back to Graz, recorded at the time he now recognises as the beginning of the rest of his life, he’s enamoured by and contented with the delicate grandeur of the album. “It feels like it’s coming out now in a moment where I just completely forgot how I felt or how it was to be there,” he says, recalling the draw of writing music for music’s sake. “It’s so long ago that when I listen to the music, I’m almost a little bit in awe at how good some of these moments were, like, emotionally.”





Tracklist:
1.Lighter 03:49
2.O I End 04:49
3.Because This Must Be 02:45
4.Kurzum 08:38
5.And Om 05:00
6.Hammers 01:51
7.Crossings 06:19
8.About Coming And Leaving 02:07
9.Went Missing 03:30


Media Report:
Genre: ambient, classical
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits