Nils Frahm - Music For Animals

    Nils Frahm – Music For Animals VINYL 4LP

    22 Sep

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    Artist: Nils Frahm
    Title: Music For Animals VINYL 4LP
    Format: VINYL 4LP
    Barcode: 4050538819397
    Year: 2022
    Genre: Classical, Electronica, Ambient
    Style: Neo-Classical, Post-Modern

    SENSORY OVERLOAD

    Sydney Vivid Festival June 2022 highlighted Nils Frahm performing works from his then upcoming (now released) new album Music For Animals.

    A die-hard tight knit group of Nirvana Sound “music heads” all came together from Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Wollongong for each evening knowing no two Nils Frahm performances are ever the same. For these fans a single concert was not an option and going all three nights back-to-back to see the same music performed could be classed by some as a sensory (and definite monetary) overload 😉

    However, those hardy souls were offered the unique opportunity to interpret and sense what nuances and musical diversions occurred and can only happen live. With Nils Frahm playing unique and sometimes ancient instruments means the sonic soundscape will present differently due to environmental and mechanical factors beyond mortal control.

    He commenced each night play a Glass Armonica which was originally built by Benjamin Franklin (he of the key and kite school of science in 1761) .The glass harmonica, also known as the glass armonica, glass harmonium, bowl organ, hydrocrystalophone, or simply the armonica or harmonica is a type of musical instrument that uses a series of glass bowls or goblets graduated in size to produce musical tones by means of friction (instruments of this type are known as friction idiophones).

    They are delicate and difficult instruments to operate and navigate. Frahm’s sonic alchemy of neo-classical soundscapes, ambient textures and atmospheric electronica has made him a breathtaking, unpredictable live performer, and in the Joan Sutherland Theatre he played the world premiere he titled Music For Sydney. It was a WOW! Event.

    Music For Animals, his first new studio material since 2018’s ‘All Melody’ and 2019’s associated ‘All Encores’ contains ten tracks and is over three hours long. Wait did someone say three hours???
    Don’t have time out of your busy schedule to waste on listening to music designed to relax and meditate to? Surely there’s an app for that – to condense it down to microwave ready heat and eat quality with no mess washing up dishes. If slow food and slow anything is not in your wheelhouse at this time then “ Pass Go and collect $200” (as that is the cost of the album). For those willing to play a long game then on this album Nils’ partner plays the Glass Harmonica whilst he overlays the rhythmic synth patterns and arpeggios.

    The unique mechanical attributes of the Glass Harmonica will test your system’s resolution out. You should be able to detect the stop start stiction effects as the glass rings in tune with deft contact pressure. It’s an eerie melancholy sound that sits between our sensory abilities.

    According to expert opinion the disorienting quality of the ethereal sound is due in part to the way that humans perceive and locate ranges of sounds. Above 4 kHz people primarily use the loudness of the sound to differentiate between left and right ears and thus triangulate, or locate the source.
    Below 1 kHz, they use the phase differences of sound waves arriving at their left and right ears to identify location. The predominant pitch of the armonica is in the range of 1–4 kHz, which coincides with the sound range where the brain is “not quite sure”, and thus listeners have difficulty locating it in space (where it comes from), and discerning the source of the sound (the materials and techniques used to produce it).

    Benjamin Franklin himself described the harmonica’s tones as “incomparably sweet”. The full quotation, written in a letter to Giambattista Beccaria, an Italian priest and electrician, is: “The advantages of this instrument are that its tones are incomparably sweet beyond those of any other; that they may be swelled and softened at pleasure by stronger or weaker pressures of the finger, and continued to any length; and that the instrument, once well-tuned, never again wants tuning.”

    The album is a meditative piece celebrating tone, timbre and texture in long immersive monologues.
    It reminded me of the works of electronic pioneers Tangerine Dream in their Ricochet / Encore 1977 era with Franke/Baumann supporting Froese. To get the pieces you must submerge yourself in the gentle rhythms and once inside you can open your vista to get the melodies contained underneath the layering.

    Music For Animals offers an immersive experience. “My constant inspiration,” Frahm explains, “was something as mesmerising as watching a great waterfall or the leaves on a tree in a storm. It’s good we have symphonies and music where there’s a development, but a waterfall doesn’t need an Act 1, 2, 3, then an outcome, and nor do the leaves on a tree in a storm. Some people like watching the leaves rustle and the branches move. This record is for them”.

    Getting outdoors and sitting in nature watching the water flow by is a chance to experience tranquillity and this album is a way of channelling that feeling from the darkness of a living room stereo system. The visuals can be provided all inside your head. The sonics – leave that to Nils as he crafts incredible landscapes.

    As Frahm himself happily points out, “It all comes back to that waterfall. If you want to watch it, watch it. If you don’t, then you don’t have to. It will always be the same, yet never quite the same.”

    A true sensory overload of the most pleasant type – see you in 3 hours…

    Track listing

    • The Dog with 1000 Faces
    • Mussel Memory
    • Seagull Scene
    • Sheep in Black and White
    • Stepping Stone
    • Briefly
    • Right Right Right
    • World of Squares
    • Lemon Day
    • Do Dream
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