Tripping with Nils Frahm

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!

Nils Frahm is legitimately a genius. There is no other way to describe the impression you are left with after this incredible, intimate and rousing performance.

The concert is performed, fittingly, with Frahm centered in the audience on a small stage surrounded by a wall of musical instruments. And he then proceeds to build a haunting and evocative mood, spending the next hour and a half taking us on a journey through a range of emotions from melancholy, to exhilaration over pensiveness and solemnity. It is rare to experience a single cohesive performance that so brilliantly evokes every emotion along the journey, without feeling forced or incoherent.

Every piece is amazingly performed, with a Nils Frahm that is clearly completely and wholly immersed in his performance and the music. It is truly a pleasure to watch not just his mastery of the keyboard and synthesizers, but also his plain love and enjoyment of the music.

I've listened to this concert half a dozen times and I don't think I'll ever stop enjoying the performance.

Lastly, while the music is available on streaming services, I found the recording from Funkhaus Berlin WAY more engaging and moving. I would STRONGLY recommend watching the live performance. It is a league apart from the recording I heard in Spotify.

Puts you directly back to your own live experience if you had the privilege of it. For all others it's nothing less than the best equivalent to it - particularly in times of Covid. A great performance by a genius musician brilliantly captured. Highly recommended!

Great music from Nils Frahm! My only problem with this documentary: I just watched this piece at the MUBI streaming service and the video drops a frame every second! I mean, this is supposed to be a professional piece... it really distracts the viewer. This cheapens the experience. Hopefully this is just a MUBI quality control issue and you won't experience it in other streaming services or media.

It is not as terrible as the Talking Heads documentary audio getting out of sync with the image the more you kept watching.

At least you can enjoy his beautiful music and closing your eyes.

Spaces.

I was at two of the shows shown here, and the film captures well how special it felt to be there. Seeing him live is always a pretty ecstatic, illuminating experience, and this made me feel like I was back there, in 2018. Also captures quite well how special and incredible Funkhaus is. Easily my favorite venue in the entire world. Anyway, it's a wonderful film.