NILS FRAHM

SPACES (Erased Tapes)

18/20

Attempting to capture the intensity of performed electronic-based music in an album format is difficult, verging on pointless. Few have had any degree of success (Daft Punk’s Alive 2007, Basinski’s Disintegration Loops performed at MoMA), but Spaces, the latest work from Nils Frahm, more than deserves to join that concise group. While the piano is obviously and rightly the centrepiece here, Frahm takes ideas, approaches and concepts from the short but dense canon of electronic music that feed back into his performance, informing his playing in a way unique to him.

Much like the classical pieces that Frahm is inspired by, but not indebted to, Spaces unravels over a number of distinct movements, providing a cohesive structure despite each individual recording coming from a different performance across two years. The only pieces to contain anything resembling percussion bookend the album, with opener An Aborted Beginning sounding like a Rhythm & Sound record heard from the other side of an empty Trouw, while closer Ross’s Harmonium layers languid, arcing synth coos over the softest of kick drums.

The filling between this percussive bread is some of the most explicitly emotional music we’ve heard in forever. Said and Done, with its duelling, staccato pianos, is simultaneously confusing and enthralling, and when listened to in headphones, swirls around that bit where your brain is, turning it to melancholic mush. This feeling prevails through to the heart of the album, culminating in the explosive rush of Hammers, after which the iconic synthetic tones of For reset the scene in an instant. An improvised medley follows over 16 coursing minutes, taking in the discordant Peter, the Kreidler-referencing homewares of Toilet Brushes and the bouncing ecstasy of More.

The final act sees a return to the plaintive piano-solo pieces that Frahm excels at. In particular, the twinkling strains of Over There, It’s Raining feel like the weightiest winter comedown you’ve never had. Spaces could never hope to fully convey the experience of seeing Frahm in the flesh and ivory, but as a document of his expansive work, it’s the closest thing we have.

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Words: Steve Dores