Nils Frahm – Felt

I miss this kind of Nils Frahm music. This is gorgeous piano music and highly melodic. It's loose but it's not meandering, and it never trails off into ambient territory or lengthy self indulgence. It's short and sweet and it contains some of the most beautiful music I own on vinyl. The pressing is faultless.

The high water mark of Neo classical music? ? ?

Very nice pressing. Super quiet where it needs to be, lively during musical passages.

Excellent vinyl record pressing. Audio fidelity and dynamics are all here. Beautiful album.

The hammer noises are too heavy really and somewhat spoil the gentle piano musings
I suppose they add a sort of rhythm, but several tracks in it gets rather grating - seems a gimmick
I'd be intrigued to hear this same album without the noises.
It might be nice with sounds of trees rustling, or birds tweeting instead of the constant hammering

First of all, I don’t think I’ve heard an album from Nils Frahm that didn’t impress me. Ever since I heard The Bells (Kning Disk, 2009) and Wintermusik (Sonic Pieces, 2009), I’ve hungrily consumed everything by this Berlin based modern classical composer. Both of the above, as well as Unter | Über release, and now Felt have been picked up by the wonderful Erased Tapes Records, home to Ólafur Arnalds, Peter Broderick and A Winged Victory For The Sullen. Oh, and while I’m going through Frahm’s discography, don’t forget his collaboration with Anne Müller on 7fingers - one of my all time favorite glitchy modern classical albums!

For Felt, we find Nils back behind the piano, playing solo pieces that are hauntingly beautiful, dangerously gorgeous and melancholy elated. The microphones on the recording appear to be placed very closely to the hammers, keys, and pedals. So close that I could hear every breath, stroke and creaking of the instrument. The album is so personal, intimate and cozy that there is no doubt that Frahm has fused his fingers with his piano, and became inseparably one. The melodies warm up, slowly rise into the air, evaporate and immediately become classic. The consecutive plays of the album only reassure their permanence in the contemporary and neo classical world.

This accidental finding unraveled a deeply affectionate space, allowing the instrument to whisper its secrets through the hands of the player, sharing the music through the physical act of playing, as eloquently captured on the album. This is a piece that only Frahm could make and it could only have been released by Erased Tapes. Felt receives our highest possible praise and is featured on our Best of 2011 list, Music For Watching The Snow Slowly Fall In The Moonlight. Can not recommend this enough…

Beautiful neo classical music. For those poetic dreams at night, strong rum and a bit of old cheese on a plank. Then, this music. There's no need to do any thinking, it's the music that does it for you. The need to break out seems farther away than ever. It's the wanting to deepen your spirit and silence that is awakened. Take another sip from that drink and sink deeper in your chair, side b is on.