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2LP
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LTR 046LP
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Recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris and one and a half a year after releasing his magnum opus Music For Animals -- described by PopMatters as "a musical waterfall of monumental proportions" -- Nils Frahm shares a new live album on his Leiter label. In what's becoming a tradition, it follows 2013's Spaces, a Pitchfork Album of the Year taped at shows over the preceding 18 months, and 2020's Tripping With Nils Frahm, also released as a film. Paris is Frahm's first live album from a single night, March 21, 2024, and contains ten tracks over a running time of 84 minutes. Frahm's performances have always been known for expanding upon his studio recordings, and Paris is no exception. Drawing on his substantial catalogue, the German composer and producer reworks tracks from Music For Animals ("Right Right Right" and "Briefly") before less recent material from 2009's The Bells ("Some"), and 2012's Screws ("Re," originally recorded with just nine fingers after Frahm broke a thumb). There's also "Spells" from All Encores and "You Name It" from Day, while the brand new, luxurious and strangely gripping "Opera" sets the stage for "On The Roof" from his heart-rending, award-winning score for 2015's widely acclaimed, one-camera, one-take German thriller, Victoria. Frahm's instrumental range has expanded to include a mountain of vintage synths and keyboard instruments. These include a custom-made organ as well as the final glass harmonica constructed by Gerhard Finkenbeiner, a master glassblower who, in the 1980s, resurrected the instrument -- first invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761 -- and then died in 1999 in mysterious, still unresolved circumstances. Frahm's grasp of dynamics and tension has likewise expanded, and not only does he reinvigorate his work during concerts for this wider range of possibilities, but he also keeps developing it as he tours. If he leaves the stage to the same uproarious jubilation with which he was initially greeted, Paris makes it clear why he's been so in demand. Paris is a vital document of this ingenious, gifted musician's endless pursuit of fresh perspectives.
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