NILS FRAHM Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Iceland's Olafur Arnalds (Kiasmos) and German multi-instrumentalist Nils Frahm team up again for some breathtaking excursions in classical/ambient crossover bliss. Frahm's sombre piano passages gently dance over Arnalds' serene soundscapes and eerie field recordings on this bittersweet and emotive journey. What was meant to be a one hour video recording of the duo in action turned out to be an eight hour long improvisation session and these are some of the segments of the wonderful marathon recording. We particularly enjoyed the gorgeously haunting electronic soul captured on "23:52" where those analogue synth strings just rise and rise to an epic climax.

Review: Nils Frahm's latest must-check full-length excursion is not a brand-new work to mark Piano Day, the annual celebration of the instrument that made him famous, but rather an unheard collection from the vaults. It was recorded for Erased Tapes back in 2009, while he was still a student at the University of Performing Arts Graz, but for some reason they decided not to issue it at the time. It's Frahm at his minimalistic, spine-tingling best, offering up a swathe of solo piano pieces that veer from melancholic meditations, and immersive soundscapes, to genuinely cinematic compositions, yearning jazz interludes and - in the case of the brilliant 'Hammers' - gloriously uplifting workouts for vocal and piano.

Review: Classically trained pianist turned experimental composer Nils Frahm has previously been fairly prolific, so it's a surprise to find that Solo is his first album is some two years. As the title suggests, Solo is a wonderfully minimal, stripped back affair, full of rich, echo-laden recordings of Frahm sat playing his own piano compositions. He's a past master at creating evocative pieces with the minimal of instrumentation, and Solo is packed full of this kind of yearning, often melancholic fare. He doffs a cap to Steve Reich on the booming, circular chords and slowly shifting refrains of "Wall", while the soft focus "Immerse" is a 10-minute delight.