Nils Frahm Night & Day

NILS FRAHM has announced he will fulfil last year’s promise to follow up Day, the collection of solo piano music he released last March. Night, which contains five new tracks, will be released on May 9, 2025, on vinyl as well as via all digital platforms. A CD version, Night & Day, including all eleven tracks from both Day and Night, will also be made available at the same time. These follow Frahm’s latest live album, Paris, which was released in December last year. In the meantime, Frahm will continue as he has for almost three years, with his world tour finally concluding this spring with shows in Australia, America and Canada. Frahm recorded the pieces on Night on the Klavins M450 piano, installed in his studio at the renowned Funkhaus complex in Berlin. It was built by German-Latvian piano maker David Klavins for the first Piano Day in 2015, a celebration that will mark its 10th anniversary this March. At 4.5 meters tall and weighing over a tonne, the model was the largest upright piano in the world at the time. The record is a reminder that, although he has since become celebrated for the complex, intricate arrangements of his most commercially successful multi-instrumental albums, Frahm first made his name with similarly meditative piano compositions on albums like 2009’s The Bells, 2011’s Felt and 2012’s Screws. Night opens at a glacial pace with ‘Wesen’, giving notice of the more subdued nature at the heart of this thirty-minute collection. It conjures images of Frahm, lit only by a candle, huddled over his instrument, playing for the sheer companionship that it offers, while also prompting acknowledgement of his ability to tease affecting melodies from minimal means. ‘Monuments Again’ is more immediately accessible, its subtly jazzy nature disguising a gentle melancholy, with Frahm’s fingers dancing over the keyboard with increasing intensity until, at its conclusion, he reiterates its central theme. Despite its name, ‘Kanten’ – ‘Angles’ in English – is a more traditional affair, a timeless piece of solo chamber music devoted early on to the piano’s lower keys, lending it not so much a sense of menace as a measure of foreboding, at least until Frahm’s right hand takes up the quietly uplifting, melodic initiative. The eight-minute long ‘Listening Over’ also feels initially like a more formal affair, distinguished as much by quiet trills as enviable patience, Frahm often hesitating carefully over its notes, ultimately evoking a sense of relief without the normally attendant tension. If, however, there’s been a certain air of darkness up to this point, Night closes with ‘Canton’, its delicious airiness perhaps the record’s equivalent of a glimpse of dawn, its tender melody like the day’s first sunbeams peeking over the horizon. It’s a perfect conclusion to a typically beguiling collection that, as always, points to a musical character that is immediately, distinctively Frahm’s. It also highlights why the German pianist has continued throughout his career to return loyally to the piano as his first love. After all, it’s notable that, even during his recent, expansive live performances, which find him leaping between multiple keyboards, synths, and even a glass harmonica, Frahm has always made space for such works. That’s something documented on the likes of 2013’s Spaces, where ‘Said And Done’ is a highlight, and last year’s Paris, during which ‘You Name It’ – itself taken from Day – ‘Some’ and ‘Re’ provide a crucial interlude between his more demanding, grandiose works. Night, like Day, confirms that Frahm remains a prolific master of affecting simplicity, tenderness and romance, and as capable as ever of unforgettable, epigrammatic succinctness.