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Baker's Dozen

Music Is Not Sport: Nils Frahm's Favourite Albums
Karl Smith , September 10th, 2015 14:05

Before he releases his Late Night Tales compilation, the pianist, composer and new classical ("I never liked it, but I'm stuck with it now; give me something cool like 'neo jazz'") pioneer gives Karl Smith a tour of his favourite overlooked records, by musicians "that deserve a little afterglow"

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The Gentlemen Losers - Dustland
These guys just visited my studio and I have a big crush on their first two records. This is kind of the best example of overlooked artists, you know? It's like Bibio, who fortunately is doing well - I knew Bibio before he signed to Warp - he got discovered by Boards Of Canada and now he has this kind of push. And I thought: if I could help them, if I could be the kind of Boards Of Canada to The Gentlemen Losers then that would be great.

They're purely recording artists; I know they want to play live shows as well but I know that it's really hard to translate the studio stuff on stage I think, so they need to make a living by selling music. Everyone who reads this I suggest they buy the first records - you'll never want your money back: just fantastic music, so emotional, the best produced stuff I've heard in years. I love old production techniques but they combine kind of this old sound with something you could only do today. It's not totally retro, they just like real instruments - old and new.

They're over there in Helsinki, these two brothers, kind of shut off from everything, but they're really breeding something special. They don't know so much about the latest music - kind of like me, I don't follow the latest Boomkat stuff all the time, for example, because if I want to have an experience with or a direct link to music that is inspiring then it's better it's something from that list than something from the charts. When you sound like that it's kind of boring.

This record is a good source of inspiration because it's not in everybody's mouth, I've learned a lot from them and I'm really thankful for their music. Whenever I have the chance to spread their name I feel really good about it because I'm so comfortable with what they're doing; I want to associate myself with them because I trust them 100%. They'll never make me feel ashamed for raving about them.