Nils FrahmBoth Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds create ambient environments with a large instrumental palette and give distinct nods to Brian Eno, but they do so from different vantage points. On Frahm’s albums, the individual tracks tend to inhabit different scenery, characters, and textures, yet are bound together with a shared focus and love of keyboards.
Arnalds’ impressionistic pieces work together cohesively within the framework of an album and usually employ a fuller orchestra. Even though Frahm is from Germany and Arnalds is native to Iceland, it almost seems like the two composers could be long lost brothers.
heir third collaborative record, an EP of synth-centric songs called Loon, was cut straight to two-inch tape at Frahm’s Berlin studio last fall.
“Nils got some new synths and we thought we’d try them out,” Arnalds explained in a press release. “We loved them so much that we didn’t actually end up using anything else to make these songs.”
“When I was young I was smuggled to Goa parties by my brother,” added Frahm. “The music played there in the late ’90s had a somewhat deep effect on me. Loon is almost a blurry memory of these times. In other words, it is what I’d like to remember that music sounded like back then. In fact it sounded probably really cheesy.”
