Toilet Brushes – More

Nils Frahm has spoken about making music from whatever materials are at hand, and this piece takes that philosophy to an almost perverse extreme — the title is not metaphorical. The scrubbing, bristled texture of toilet brushes becomes a rhythmic element, transformed through close microphone placement and Frahm's studio instincts into something genuinely musical, abrasive and domestic simultaneously. The piece layers this unconventional percussion beneath piano figures that are characteristically intimate, the instrument miked so closely you can hear the mechanical action of the keys, the felt dampers lifting, the sustain pedal breathing. What emerges is a meditation on the relationship between the mundane and the beautiful — on where musical material actually begins. The mood oscillates between playful and earnest without settling in either direction, which is Frahm's particular gift. He belongs to a tradition of European composers who emerged in the 2000s around the Erased Tapes label, musicians who refused the binary between classical and experimental, between concert hall and studio experiment. The piece rewards headphone listening that allows you to catch every texture in the low end, every overtone in the piano's upper register. It is music for curious ears — people who lean in rather than settle back. You reach for it when you want to be reminded that attention itself is a form of joy, that the difference between noise and music is entirely a matter of where you place your focus.