Tripping with Nils Frahm

Do not enter unless beautifully minimal atmospheric music is your thing. If it is, come in a bathe. Before watching this, I knew the name Nils Frahm, but not really heard any of his music. I will always maintain that witnessing a live performance is the best way to discover new music but although this is only recording of such an event, it's a pretty close second. Nils is in Berlin, at the amazing looking Funkhaus. Recorded across several performances in 2018, what's essentially a concert film features an indulgent array of cameras capturing him playing solo. Surrounded in the round on an intimate stage by synths, sequencers, pianos and probably a ton of stuff I can't accurately identify. These sort of films can be a little hit or miss, but for me this is a hit. The music is sublimely beautiful, the setting looks wonderful and the cut is elegant and simple. There's no fluff, nothing more than there need be. As soon as artists are able to tour again. Go see Nils Frahm. I'll be there.

Nils Frahm creates amazing minimal & neoclassical music, mixing classical piano with modern synthesizers. He can effortlessly go from a grand piano, to a children's toy piano, to echo/reverb- and loop heavy synthesizer pieces in a single song, with transitions so seamless you hardly notice it.

Nils uses a collection of classic Roland equipment, with multiple Juno-60 synthesizers and Chorus Echo RE-501's, which he all mixes together himself during the concert performance.

Nils likes to improvise, so every concert he does, the songs sound a bit (to a lot) different. For example, this collage of "Tripping with Nils Frahm" recordings contains a lot of older songs, but some are completely transformed. For example, "Fundamental Values" is an amazing evolution to the same song from the "All Melody" album version! This concert features great quiet piano pieces, to all the big songs he is known for, like "Says", "All Melody" and "More". And as usual on a live show, of course the epic "Toilet Brushes" also make an appearance again.

For this concert, Nils was in complete control of the filming, and it shows in what details the camera focusses on. In "normal" concert recordings, like those you may find on the internet, the focus is more on the general stage, the audience, the atmosphere, and perhaps a bit on the artist.

In this film however, the focus is nearly completely on the music, and how Nils creates it. You will see (and hear) every button press, every clicked switch, every key hit. It is a very refreshing view on a concert recording.

I recommend you watch your favorite songs multiple times, and focus on different elements of the song each time. You will discover details you've never noticed before!

What is art, what is an artist. Nils Frahm is the answer to all these questions. I watched this man live three times. I'm still excited to see him. This production is a typical concert movie. The incredible camera usage is admirable. We should also thank Brad Pitt for providing us with this work. So he is also a Nils Frahm fan. I was also very happy for this. They had already worked together in Ad-Astra.

Beautiful capturing of an outstanding artist at work. Some of the reviews I read on the MUBI site were very critical. In a way it is understandable - if you have no understanding of music technology it may be difficult to appreciate just how difficult it is to pull this off in a live context. Bravo Nils and the production team for an amazing job.

Beautiful! Wonderful! Amazing! The sound quality is fantastic. The direction is brilliant. And the artist, well, absolutely tremendous! Such passion, such finesse. Please watch :)