All Melody

A vibrant, exploratory album born from Frahm’s newly constructed Berlin studio and the freedom to experiment it allowed.

It’s astounding stuff from a modern master.

Frahm’s first major solo work since Spaces, and it finds its maker exploring new sounds and new spaces with often stunning results.

With All Melody, Nils Frahm has retained his unique approach and emotional sensitivity. He’s also expanded his sound, and shown more of his soul than ever before. It’s a record to be treasured.

All Melody is remarkably well-rounded. It's not a techno album, it's not a classical album and it's not an ambient album, but it at times resembles all three.

For Nils Frahm, this record is nothing new: on his terms it is not extraordinary. But for mere mortals, All Melody is a bracing cacophony of the possibilities of minute sonic experimentation.

An ambitious and unclassifiable album. [Feb 2018, p.88]

Listeners so far unhipped to the contemporary avant-classical may find themselves pleasantly intrigued. [Feb 2018, p.117]

By challenging himself to make the most out of his new recording environment, he has refreshed his sound and ended up with his most engaging and accessible work to date. It is a wholly immersive triumph that draws you in tight as few albums do.

It's an impressive compilation of provocatively disparate ideas, but taken in in its intended order, there's a mesmerizing continuity to it all.

Richard Koch's trumpet and Shards' choral vocals on the spooky "Human Range" confirm his quiet urge to defy expectations. [Feb 2018, p.27]

Across 12 songs and 74 minutes, All Melody functions as a single, cohesive piece of music, with recurring themes interwoven throughout. It’s easy to get lost in the album and then, hearing a familiar motif, come up short, as if turning a corner in a long hallway and wondering if you hadn’t passed the same spot just a moment ago. It’s a pleasantly disorienting sensation.

By making a space that fits his creative style, Frahm found a way to give complex compositions even more room to weave themselves into the world while you listen.

Frahm can get a little lost in his acreage and compositions might benefit from the fences of editing but transportation requires a sense of adventure and following Nils Frahm has hidden rewards.