Nils Frahm on making ‘Paris’ and why he won’t chase fame

Regularly touted as one of the most important artists in a generation, composer, piano prodigy, producer, analogue gear fanatic and musical polymath Nils Frahm has established himself as a deeply influential musician while keeping his career as uncommercial and uncompromising as you can imagine. After his last full album saw him make a left turn into a three-hour analogue ambient record, Frahm is back and chats with Headliner to discuss Paris, his new live album of symphonic proportions, recorded in one night at the Philharmonie de Paris.

Frahm is one of the earliest pioneers of what has been dubbed the ‘neoclassical’ music scene and genre, while others have called it ‘modern classical’ and ‘indie classical’. Growing up near the German city of Hamburg, he began playing piano at an early age, which should be relatively obvious from his outrageous ability on the instrument.

He maintained his interest in classical music while later being drawn into Hamburg’s clubbing scene, before eventually relocating to Berlin, where he still lives and makes his music today. Among his first releases, which came in his mid-twenties, was the beautiful three-track EP Wintermusick, a record that he has said was originally recorded to gift to friends and families. An early example of Frahm combining different keyboard instruments: the piano, celeste, and harmonium.

His expectations for the EP turned out to be very humble — lead track Ambre is his most streamed track on Spotify with over 111 million streams on that platform alone, and would be the perfect explainer track if someone asked you what is meant by the modern neoclassical music scene. 

Close-miked piano with a strip of felt dampening the sound of the piano hammers hitting the keys, played so delicately that it sounds like Frahm was trying not to disturb his neighbours (which he was).

His breakthrough came in the shape of 2011’s Felt, his first release with Erased Tapes record, and his non-commercial stardom was further consolidated with his first live album Spaces, which includes his eight-minute piano and synthesizer masterwork Says. 

By this point in 2013, the scene was completely thriving with the likes of Ólafur Arnalds and Peter Broderick also releasing modern piano music infused with electronics. A peak moment saw Frahm and A Winged Victory For The Sullen performing at a BBC Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in 2015.

Frahm joins Headliner on Zoom from his flat in Berlin. When asked if he is still in the same living and studio space which is seen in his Trance Frendz music film and album with Ólafur Arnalds, he says, “No, I moved out. That was my first flat when I came to Berlin, and I moved out in 2017 to the Funkhaus studio. I’m not using the home studio anymore because it was time to get a proper setup, and I was getting a lot of complaints from my neighbours — I was abusing the living flat as a working place.”

Considering a portion of Frahm’s earlier and most delicate work was recorded in that apartment, including Felt and Screws (the latter recorded after an incident of falling out of bed and breaking a bone in one of his fingers), it’s hard to imagine complaining about such peaceful piano. 

That said, in the Trance Frendz film, he and Arnalds do carry on recording until three in the morning, so it may have been the late sessions that prompted the resentment.

Frahm’s aforementioned move to the iconic Funkhaus first yielded All Melody in 2018, his first studio album proper following the live Spaces record. The studio is steeped in East-Berlin history – it was used as a radio broadcast centre by the DDR (German Democratic Republic) during the Cold War, and that album saw Frahm lean more heavily into the juddering sounds of Berlin electronica and techno.

It was also the filming location for his live concert film Tripping With Nils Frahm, in collaboration with the arthouse streaming platform MUBI. Also, bizarrely, the film is produced by Brad Pitt — the A-list actor had asked Frahm if he would score the space flick Ad Astra in which Pitt stars, but the composer had to turn the opportunity down due to his touring schedule. 

The pair stayed in touch and you can unexpectedly see his Hollywood name in the credits. Funkhaus is also where he recorded Music For Animals, a sprawling, three-hour ambient work.

Regarding his return to recording a live album, Frahm says, “It feels like I’m obliged to present my studio works live. And I really enjoy the studio process. Usually, I lock myself into the studio and write new material. And that material is often a starting point for live arrangements. We’re just finishing a tour of almost three years — in that period of time, the songs developed, and my performances changed. About two-thirds into the tour is the best moment to make a recording of the program, because then you really see a development from the studio material, and playing live definitely shapes the music to a certain extent.

“This is what I realised back in 2013 when I recorded Spaces, which became a popular work of mine. There’s something in the room and something you can feel in a live record that is not achievable in the studio. So I feel like recording live and recording in the studio will always remain incomparable.”

There is a significant difference between the application of Spaces and Paris. Spaces, Frahm’s first live album, was pieced together from different concerts spanning the course of two tours, whereas the recording of Paris all hinged on the one concert in the French capital earlier this year.

“Back in 2013, there was no proper production from our end, so we could almost never rely on our recording equipment or my live performance,” Frahm says, his German accent often as calming as his music. 

“It made sense for me to record multiple concerts and pick the best moments. I took a lot of freedom, even overdubbing certain things afterwards and mixing things in a completely different way. Spaces was mostly recorded on an old tape deck, which was unreliable. In Paris, it was the opposite situation. ARTE was presenting the concert, and they were recording and filming with us at the Philharmonie, which was a very clean setup. So I felt like it was time to just record everything in one night. I felt good about the concert, so we decided to release it.”

A fascinating aspect of Paris is that, while Frahm has quite clearly never cared about track lengths, and has long been outspoken against Spotify’s generic, algorithmic playlists like Peaceful Piano and Sleepy Piano (Ólafur Arnalds has even confirmed that these playlists use made up composers). 

In early 2019, Frahm announced he was leaving social media entirely, and that his mailing list would be the only way to hear from him online. His latest album confirms his distaste for algorithms and trends more than ever, with the song, Briefly clocking up 18 minutes.

“I am lucky enough to not worry about paying rent because I’m an established artist,” he says. “And as an established artist, I feel obligated to follow my heart and intuition. If we always chase fame, clicks, and attention, we risk losing everything in the long run. You might be successful now, but will people remember anything the year after you’ve died? Not that I’m obsessed with the idea of a legacy, but I think we all want to leave something meaningful behind. I do hope to inspire other musicians to release music that meets their artistic vision, rather than compromising for industry standards.

“If we follow the logic of money and industry standards, we might miss the chance to create real art. AI can spit out a million songs which are under three minutes. In the next two years, probably half or more of the music people listen to in everyday situations won't be made by people, and that's only the beginning. So I suggest that we just focus on music which stands out and beats whatever AI is generating. We need to prepare ourselves for that.”

Nothing exemplifies Frahm’s words more than lead single Spells, an 11-minute epic that showcases the mad yet wonderful orchestra of sounds and instruments he has constructed for his live setup — watch any recent live performance from the German and you’ll see him darting around the instruments that literally surround him: different pianos, a Rhodes keyboard, an array of modular and polyphonic synthesizers, and his electronically controlled pipe organ that is treated more like a synth arpeggiator than an acoustic instrument.

Over its run time, Spells is like a symphony in that it uses many of these elements in a psychedelic cacophony of sound, taking the scale of previous tracks like All Melody even further. Years ago, a Frahm performance would just be himself, a piano or other keyboard, and perhaps his Roland Juno synthesizer. It’s fascinating, then, to hear him speaking about how his eye-wateringly ambitious, travelling array of instruments, which he describes singularly as his “instrument,” has grown organically over time.

“I see it as almost like an instrument which adds registers,” he says. “Like a big church organ which is growing, and it started with one register, one set of pipes, and now you add another set of pipes and another. And you can basically drive the thing into different colours and timbers and speeds and dynamics. I always was looking for drastic dynamics in concerts, because most of the shows I witnessed were all just very quiet, or all very loud. 

"One of my guidelines for my set is to achieve the most insane range of dynamics possible. So we need to be able to hear the quietest of notes in the evening and also be able to transport the high energy of the bass. I’m trying to achieve dynamics which were maybe never possible before.”

Headliner mentions one of his much earlier London concerts, at his then record label Erased Tapes’ 5th birthday concert alongside Ólafur Arnalds and A Winged Victory For The Sullen. He says of his more modest setup then, “That was probably all carried along in the plane, onboard luggage or check-in luggage. It was a bit stressful to just fly with that stuff because everything would break all the time, and now we have a much better way to transport everything.” Watch the music video for Hammers, and you’ll get a sense of the army of people required to get the stage set up before Frahm performs.

Elsewhere on the album are some of his trademark solo piano pieces, a reworked version of the virtuosic crowd-pleaser Hammers, one of the themes from his music for the one-shot German movie Victoria, Our Own Roof, and the ultra-restrained Re from Screws.

Key to Frahm’s live and studio work are three Germany-based brands: Moog, Cubase, and Neumann. Starting with the former, he says, “My Moog is on the album. For example, in the middle part, there’s a lot going on. It’s Minimoog, and it sounds incredible. I feel like every Minimoog sounds a little different. This one has some crazy things going on. I think you can hear that it’s a Moog, but some people say it doesn’t sound like one. That’s probably why it’s still so popular. It’s a great synth that can always create unexpected sounds.”

Considering this is a composer who spends as little of his music-making time in front of a screen as possible, instead using analogue mixers, tape machines, and old instruments, the fact that Frahm uses Cubase is a big compliment to Steinberg, the team behind the DAW.

“I love Cubase and I love Steinberg and the crew. They're just great people. It's easy to talk to them. They're based in Hamburg, where I grew up. It’s cool to have a Hamburg-based company that made the first computer sequencer on Atari. It’s quite an invention. I really like Cubase. It’s a good program and it’s way cheaper than other programs — not saying any names!”

Finally, regarding his Neumann microphones, Frahm says, “Neumann isn’t cheaper than other microphones, but they make a great product. The studio is in Berlin, and when I have a problem with a microphone, I can just go to the Berlin Neumann repair shop and headquarters. We also use other brands, and most companies have made a few good products. 

"However, I don’t know any music gear company that has made amazing things throughout all the years. It’s like your favourite band; there are very few bands that only make albums you enjoy, maybe with other bands you just go for the best songs. That’s what makes Neumann so interesting to me.”

This is as good a signing off point as any, considering this is a music artist who consistently releases brilliant and more groundbreaking albums each time, even life-changing for many of his fans. Paris is another occasion in which Frahm completely and utterly transcends the usual standard affair of a live album with its symphonic and psychedelic scale; it almost feels as if it has no discernible beginning or end. Seeing this once-in-a-generation artist live is a transformative experience, but if that simply isn’t possible for you, at least you can touch and savour it with this new album.

Photography:

Main image and image 6: Pierre Le Bruchec

Images 2, 3, 4, 5, 7: Markus Werner