Nils Frahm
O2 ABC Glasgow
Teddy Jamieson
Four stars
Near the end, as Nils Frahm worked his way through a series of insistent rising repetitions on the piano, you could see drops of sweat from his brow fall onto the keys in front of him. He had spent the previous hour rushing around the stage, hammering keyboards and twiddling knobs on his various synths, a blur of perpetual motion wringing ecstatic sounds from the bespoke equipment he'd brought for the occasion. And now here was the evidence of the work he puts into his work.
The German composer and musician, returning to Glasgow for the first time since 2012, is known for his marriage of classical textures to electronic music. On this occasion the electronic often won out in a set that nailed itself for the most part to dancehall dynamics and crisp beats rather than any idea of Schubert at a moshpit.
The result was nearly all thrilling (the Pan Pipe samples I could have done without, but that's just a matter of taste).
Opening with new material ("Thank you for paying for my rehearsals," he cheekily said afterwards), the music morphed from churchy intensity - complete with choral samples - to sci-fi soundtrack. It set the tone for an evening that had a large, reverent Glasgow audience head-nodding constantly.
The result was a kind of joyous intensity. He filled in the spaces in his music here. And so even Says, his signature tune, was more raucous, less transparent than recorded versions. No less compelling though.
What was consistent throughout was a commitment to the sonics of build and release. At one point the phrase "post-rave Vangelis" popped up in my head.
But then he would sit at the piano and show that he didn't need the electronic crackle to electrify.
"You've ten brilliant fingers," a Weegie audience member roared at the end. Enough said.
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