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Nov 04, 2021 By Joey Arnone Photography by LEITER Verlag

German pianist/composer Nils Frahm has announced the release of a new album, Old Friends New Friends, which consists of previously unreleased solo piano material created between 2009 and 2021. It will be out on December 3 via Leiter. Frahm has also shared the album’s lead single, “All Numbers End.” Listen to the song and view the album’s tracklist/cover art below.

Frahm elaborates on the album in a press release, stating that it provides “an anatomy of all my ways of thinking musically and playing. Maybe I could say it’s an album I worked on for twelve years, and finally I have enough material?”

He adds: “I forgot that some tracks are ten years old, some two, and they’re all played on different pianos. Instead, I remembered how, as a fan, I love albums like this. With a lot of my records, there’s a point where you feel, ‘This is the centerpiece,’ but here I wasn’t really worrying about that. It still feels like my universe, though, and I’m proud that all these things which I never found a way to unite before now work together. It’s like I tossed flowers indiscriminately into a vase and then realised it looked exactly right.

“My intuition is that it’s easier for me to start over if the body of work from the last 10 years or so is organised enough that I never need to worry about it again. It’s time to forget about the past, but in order to never think about it again, I have to address it first. History tells us people sometimes pick up on records years later and still like them, so hopefully, my music isn’t bound to any specific date. If people hear this for the first time in, say, 20 years, they won’t worry about when it came out or whether something else came out the same year.”

Back in March, Frahm surprise released the album Graz in honor of World Piano Day.

Read our 2013 joint interview between Frahm and actor Cillian Murphy.

Read our 2019 interview with Frahm.

Old Friends New Friends Tracklist:

1. 4:33 (A Tribute to John Cage)
2. Late
3. Berduxa
4. Rain Take
5. Todo Nada
6. Weddinger Walzer
7. In The Making
8. Further In The Making
9. All Numbers End
10. The Idea Machine
11. Then Patterns
12. Corn
13. New Friend
14. Nils Has A New Piano
15. Acting
16. As A Reminder
17. Iced Wood
18. Strickleiter
19. The Chords
20. The Chords (Broken Down)
21. Forgetmenot
22. Restive
23. Old Friend

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