Live Review: Nils Frahm

German contemporary composer Nils Frahm sits at an organ with his back to the audience. He gently presses keys as the foreboding overture The Whole Universe Wants To Be Touched swells, filling Hamer Hall, and recedes. Frahm is surrounded by impressive stacks of gear, from a child’s toy piano to a baby grand. It looks like an entire transportable recording studio, complete with a mixing desk. Between song cycles, Frahm is charming and warm. He wears extremely comfortable-looking loungewear and a flat cap on his shaved head.

Tonight’s set draws largely from 2018’s All Melody and 2013’s Spaces. At times Frahm flails between instruments, fiddling like the mad scientist he was in another life. Yet it is clear all the while that we are witnessing a precise, meticulous performance. 

Frahm joyously throws together seemingly incompatible sounds. Disparate elements eventually come together just so, in a way that suddenly makes sense. Sounds fuse in ways that a humble rock reviewer couldn’t begin to describe. Acoustic pianos are blended with arpeggiated synthesisers and pan flutes. Drum machine beats skitter like rocks down a well. In Sunson, 1970s sci-fi synths are underlaid by a thoroughly modern pulsating thud. Sometimes his compositions are highly complex, unclassifiable, genre-transcending compositions. Other times it’s just like, jeez, this bloke’s real good on the piano. 

Given his extensive toolset, Frahm shows remarkable humility and restraint much of the time. This set is not simply a demonstration of his virtuosity - though that could easily fill several hours, and appears in full force during songs like Hammers. Frahm consistently infuses his playing with a humanity and warmth which keeps the show from feeling like we're watching a music conservatorium golden child showing off. He understands that his simplest compositions tend to have the widest reach. Frahm aims to connect, rather than dazzle. This keeps his cerebral compositions from swerving wholesale into esoterica. 

Also on display tonight are Frahm’s preternatural senses of timing and rhythm. Midway through the final song suite For – Peter – Toilet Brushes – More, he takes to the exposed rods and coils in his grand piano with some brushes, reminding us that the piano is a percussion instrument after all.