#2970 Nils Frahm - All Melody

Frahm clearly knows his way around the making of sound. There's an organic crispness to his synths that I admire. But all the songs have the same lineage: rounded arpeggios, slow knob turns, ghostly washes, hints of shepard tone hyponsis, maybe some throughline, like Momentum's infinite shimmering buzz. Patience, risking tipping over into lack of focus, like on A Place's so-slow turns to the outer world.

But damn, My Friend the Forest gets special mention, one of the best songs of the year. The way that acoustic thump of keys gives ground to an already-gorgeous melody. Transcending the already-transcendent likes of The Books and Aphex Twin as an exercise in exquisitely present music. One of the most exciting, soothing, things I've heard in ages, the kind of song that makes you glad to be alive and afraid to die 3.5/5