Night

Too involved to be ambient and too emotionally ambivalent to be New Age, these five solo-piano mini-pieces conjure a history of ruminative, spiritually attuned music from Erik Satie (“Kanten”) to post-modal jazz (“Monuments Again”) to American church hymns (“Canton”) and the harmonium improvisations of the mystic G.I. Gurdjieff (“Wesen”). Not that Frahm’s musical sophistication necessarily matters—if anything, what makes his work unusual is that his sophistication feels hidden, effortless. The music itself goes down like cool, clear water.