Nils Frahm fashions an absorbing journey in his majestically haunting edition of Late Night Tales. Continuing the consistently superb sequence of tales that have been told previously in the series, Nils keeps up appearances with a distinguished assembly of tracks traversing jazz, dub, electronica, soundtrack excerpts and classical composition. All are gently stitched together and remoulded into chapters of sentiment through added effects, reworks and compositional musical phrasing.
Frahm eases into his eclectic musical library, beginning exquisitely with his own rework of experimental composer John Cage’s controversial piece, ‘4’33″‘. Adapting the concept of the original, which is much-perceived as four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence, Nils used the sounds of the environment to inspire every key stroke and change in tempo. ‘Divertimento Fur Tenorsaxophon Und Kleines Ensemble Pt. 4’ is treated with extra crackle and pan giving it a particularly eerie feel whilst Boards of Canada’s ‘In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country’ is slowed way down making the kids’ laughter sound like adults and making the tone a shade darker, felt especially in the organ.
‘It’s the Talk of the Town’ by Victor Silvester seems almost dubbed like a warped record and acts an ideal segue in to the ambient dub sounds of System with ‘SK20’ and the hypnotic ‘Mango Drive” by Rhythm and Sound. Smooth solemn jazz sounds of the meticulous Miles Davis bring on calm introversion in ‘Générique’ before Nils draws out the peaceful phase with the soothing classical piece ‘O Herr Bleibet Meine Freunde, BWV 147’. Nina Simone’s unmistakable vocals on ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes’ is just one of a number of the other tracks Frahm has so delicately pieced together in a magnificent and moving final picture. So much more than a mix, a body of work that you won’t ever want to stop listening to.
Late Night Tales: Nils Frahm is out now, available in digital and vinyl from the Late Night Tales website.
