Encores 1 - EP

To create 2018’s All Melody, Nils Frahm winnowed down 60 initial ideas to just 12 finished pieces. Encores 1 is the first attempt to salvage bits left on the cutting-room floor. Unlike the album’s complex multitracked arrangements, Encores 1’s five sketch-like pieces emphasise the Berlin pianist’s work at its most searching and spare. “The Dane”, a staple of Frahm’s 2018 tour, echoes album track “My Friend the Forest” as a brisk andante, clear as a mountain stream; even lovelier, “The Roughest Trade”, “Ringing” and “To Thomas” are imbued with a wintry stillness. Aside from a brief peal of horns at the outset of “Ringing”, it’s all solo piano save “Harmonium in the Well”, a shimmering 12-minute study for reed organ and reverb.