Nils Frahm set to release new double LP, ‘Old Friends New Friends’
Frahm said that he worked on this album “for twelve years”
On December 3, 2021, Germany’s classical-cum-electronic musician Nils Frahm will release his next record, ‘Old Friends New Friends’.
The double LP will come via Frahm’s imprint set up by himself and his manager, Felix Grimm, named LEITER. ‘Old Friends New Friends’ is, according to Frahm, a record that was worked on for over “twelve years”.
Recorded between 2009 and 2021, the album consists of 23 tracks recorded across different pianos, while including DJ equipment such as drum machines and the Moog Taurus.
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“Maybe I could say it’s an album I worked on for twelve years, and finally I have enough material,” Frahm says on the new release, adding that it presents “an anatomy of all my ways of thinking musically and playing.”
The classically trained musician pieced together ‘Old Friends New Friends’ during lockdown, delving into archives and catalogues of old music to find his favourites, and compile them in a logical order.
“I forgot that some tracks are ten years old, some two, and they’re all played on different pianos. Instead, I remembered how, as a fan, I love albums like this,” he said.
He also spoke about how it felt different from building a studio record from scratch, where you feel the need to have a centrepiece, and intro, and outro. “I wasn’t really worrying about that. It’s like I tossed flowers indiscriminately into a vase and then realised it looked exactly right.”
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The double LP will be Frahm’s third full-length release this year, after March’s ‘Graz’, a nine-track piano record in celebration of Piano Day, and September’s ‘2X1=4’, a dub-influenced album exploring new realms of electronic music.
“Hopefully my music isn’t bound to any specific date,” Frahm said. “If people hear this for the first time in, say, 20 years, they won’t worry about when it came out. It’s like if your kids finally move out when they’re 23, and you realise, ‘shit, this could have happened years ago!’”
Pre-order Nils Frahm's 'Old Friends New Friends' here.
Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow her on Twitter