Nils Frahm: Live Concert, Felt - Ansatz der Machine: Heat

Last Saturday (Feb 18th) there was an opportunity to hear Nils Frahm live, just next door at the Leuven STUK arts center. The evening was kicked off by Belgian band Ansatz der Machine who presented their recently released CD Heat. An intriguing setup with 8 band members on instruments as diverse as mandoline, guitar, steel guitar, French horn, sax, violin, percussion and synths. A discrete female vocalist complements the opulent electro-acoustic background. Heat struck me as a coherent, accomplished and sophisticated effort, a darkly suggestive (and occasionally very loud) score to an imaginary David Lynch-movie. Definitly worth rehearing.

Nils Frahm, then. What to expect live from this intriguing pianist, composer, improviser? I didn't dare to imagine how fragile fabrications such as his Wintermusik and Felt would fare under glaring stage lights. I'd seen a few live performances of his on Arte TV, none of which really captured the magic of his studio recordings. However, the Leuven concert was a captivating experience enlivened by Frahm's boyish enthusiasm and his unforced communication with the audience. Frahms worked with two keyboards (computer-enhanced buffet pianos), set perpendicularly to one another, his back to the audience. In addition, a synthesiser on top of one of the pianos. The set was different from anything I'd heard from him before. Sure he started with Said and Done (from The Bells), which he has been doing for ever ('a running gag' as he calls it) as it helps him to master his stage fright (again in his own words). But improvisiatonally he transformed it into something barely recognisable from the recorded version. I'm sorry I didn't tape the concert as I have difficulties remembering what he exactly played. But it was an enchanting mix that brought one dimension of his art very clearly into relief and that is its fundamentally hymnic character. Frahm's music is deeply celebratory, a youthful and poetic homage to the wonder of being alive. It puts him in the league of fellow pianists like Jarrett, Tsabropoulos and Mehldau. It seems to me that there is a minimalist streak in his music that is coming ever more clearly to the fore, stressing rhythmic complexities brought about by phase shifts, and slow but very effective modulations. Harmonically his music is rather 'safe' and sometimes I wish he would stray off into more adventurous territory. But there is no denying that Frahms has an uncanny ability to stay at the right side of the delicate line between  poignant art and mawkish kitch. One of the songs was played on synthesizer only. In another he asked the technical guys to progressively dim the light until he was playing in pitch darkness and then to gradually re-illuminate again, as if we were living through an artificial sunrise. Another surprise was the penultimate song in which he suddenly was joined by an alter ego at the keyboard, sharing an intricately embroidered 4-hand toccata amongts the two of them. For the final song he requested a suggestion from the audience but as a coherent and audible response was not forthcoming he proceeded with an extemporisation on the beautiful Ambre from Wintermusik. After the concert he dashed to the back end of the hall (where altogether we had been sitting for almost three hours on our bums!) to personally sell his CDs.