Nils Frahm is a German musician, composer, and record producer based in Berlin. He is known for combining classical and electronic music and for an unconventional approach to the piano in which he mixes a grand piano, upright piano, Roland Juno-60, Rhodes piano, drum machines, and Moog Taurus. In addition to his solo work, Frahm has released collaborations with such notable performers as Olafur Arnalds, F. S. Blumm, Anne Müller and Woodkid. With Frederic Gmeiner and Sebastian Singwald he records and performs as Nonkeen.
Frahm had an early introduction to music. His father, Klaus Frahm, was a photographer who also designed covers for ECM Records. He grew up near Hamburg, where he learned the styles of the classical pianists as well as contemporary composers. At school he used mixing boards and was very interested in the quality of recorded sound. He studied classical piano for 8 years under Nahum Brodsky, the protégé of the protégé of Tchaikovsky, who lived in a neighbouring village. In 2006, rather than pursue an orchestra career, Frahm moved to Berlin as a jobbing technician.
Frahm’s earlier solo piano works Wintermusik (2009) and The Bells (2009) gained him attention, but it was his 2011 release Felt that was met with critical acclaim. It was his first studio album on Erased Tapes, which has released his music since. It was followed by the solo synthesizer EP Juno; and by Screws (2012), recorded while Frahm was recovering from a thumb injury, and which was offered as a free download to fans on his birthday. His follow-up to Juno, titled Juno Reworked (2013), featured guest reworks by Luke Abbott and Chris Clark. Frahm’s album Spaces (2013) was made of live recordings from various venues spanning two years.
In December 2013, Frahm released his first music book, Sheets Eins (Sheets One), published by Manners McDade. In 2016 the follow-up Sheets Zwei was released. In 2014, Frahm announced his new piano “Una Corda”, specially designed and made for him by David Klavins. It weighs under 100 kg and has one string per key. (Standard pianos have from one to three strings per key.) His album Solo (2015), an improvised single take with no overdubs, was later recorded on the “Modell 370”, a 370 cm high vertical piano also made by David Klavins. It was one of 19 records nominated for the IMPALA Album of the Year Award. A condensed version of Frahm’s single “More” was featured in the trailer for the video game Assassin’s Creed Unity at Gamescon.
In 2015, Frahm composed his first original film score, for the German film Victoria, a 140-minute continuous take directed by Sebastian Schipper. He also collaborated with Woodkid on the critically acclaimed short film ELLIS directed by JR which was released in October 2015. In the same year, Frahm created “Piano Day”, celebrated on the 88th day of the year (due to the standard piano’s 88 keys). The event’s first project was the construction, with David Klavins, of the Modell 450 piano, the successor to the Modell 370. In February 2016, Frahm released The Gamble, followed by its companion release Oddments of the Gamble in August 2016. Pitchfork described the album as “charmingly patched together and messy as it is well-paced and dynamic”. The material was recorded over eight years while the artwork was produced by Frahm’s father.
