list.co.uk/music NILS FRAHM | MUSIC
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A L E X A N D E R S C H N E D E R
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is nice or what ideas are good but what ideas you didn’t have. It’s like in the casino when you’ve won three times, you might as well risk a little bit more. Every time I do make a little change and if the change is nice, it will stay and basically, the whole thing becomes a mutant over time. And I don’t even remember exactly how I played the thing 100 shows ago to be honest but I think, in a way, this keeps it exciting.’ Frahm’s upcoming world tour takes him from Berlin all the way to Chicago in the space of just a few months. ‘The live team have quite a different set-up,’ he says when asked about his live arrangements compared to the studio. ‘Everything can be a little bit on the edge in terms of functionality in the studio; it doesn’t matter if something crackles or something drops out because you can do it again. But in a live situation, you need to find a workflow where everything is as stable and reliable as possible. So it involves two completely different teams and it’s nice for me to go back and forth between both worlds because I can learn a lot in the studio for my live shows and vice versa.’
The next few months may be packed for Frahm but this ambition is nothing new for the celebrated composer and producer. And naturally, he’s already considering his next step. ‘We have a lot of live recordings from the last tour and we also just filmed the last couple of shows here in Berlin. So I think that really makes me feel determined to work on some good mixes of live material. If the mood is right and we are lucky then there might be this live album in the future but, fortunately, I don’t stress myself on finishing something which doesn’t want to be finished. But if the material tells me it’s ready, it will be there.’
Nils Frahm, SEC, Glasgow, Mon 18 Feb; Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Tue 19 Feb.
1 Feb–31 Mar 2019 THE LIST 77