Nils Frahm’s Felt began with a practical problem: how do you play a piano late at night without disturbing your neighbours? He damped the instrument with thick felt and played extremely softly. Then he pushed the microphones deep inside the piano, close enough to capture sounds that recording engineers often try to remove. His breathing, the movement of the piano action and creaking floorboards became almost as audible as the notes.
That accident is what interests me. We spend enormous amounts of time in studios trying to separate the intended sound from everything around it. Felt does almost the reverse. The mechanism, performer and room are allowed into the composition.
It changes the scale of listening. Instead of making the piano larger, Frahm makes us move closer. A key being pressed becomes a physical event. Silence is no longer empty because you begin hearing everything that usually hides between the notes.
Sometimes intimacy in a recording has less to do with reverb or microphone quality than with deciding which imperfections deserve to remain.
https://www.erasedtapes.com/releases/eratp033-nils-frahm-felt
