Nils Frahm fulfills last year’s promise to follow up ‘Day’, the collection of solo piano music he released last March. ‘Night’, which contains five new tracks, will be released on May 9, on vinyl as well as via all digital platforms. A CD version, ‘Night & Day’, including all eleven tracks from both albums, will also be made available at the same time. These follow Frahm’s latest live album, ‘Paris’, which was released in December last year. In the meantime, Frahm will continue as he has for almost three years, with his world tour finally concluding this spring with shows the US and Canada.

Frahm recorded the pieces on Night on the Klavins M450 piano, installed in his studio at the renowned Funkhaus complex in Berlin. It was built by German-Latvian piano maker David Klavins for the first Piano Day in 2015, a celebration that will mark its 10th anniversary this March. At 4.5 meters tall and weighing over a tonne, the model was the largest upright piano in the world at the time. The record is a reminder that, although he has since become celebrated for the complex, intricate arrangements of his most commercially successful multi-instrumental albums, Frahm first made his name with similarly meditative piano compositions on his earlier albums.

The new collection once again highlights why the German pianist has continued throughout his career to return loyally to the piano as his first love. After all, it’s notable that, even during his recent, expansive live performances, which find him leaping between multiple keyboards, synths, and even a glass harmonica, Frahm has always made space for such works. That’s something documented on the likes of 2013’s ‘Spaces’, where ‘Said And Done’ is a highlight, and last year’s ‘Paris’, during which ‘You Name It’ – itself taken from ‘Day’ – ‘Some’ and ‘Re’ provide a crucial interlude between his more demanding, grandiose works.

‘Night’, like ‘Day’, confirms that Frahm remains a prolific master of affecting simplicity, tenderness and romance, and as capable as ever of unforgettable, epigrammatic succinctness.