Nils Frahm’s ‘Screws Reworked’ to be Erased Tapes’ final 2015 release

Erased Tapes Records announced today that their final 2015 release will be yet another Nils Frahm production. This latest project, Screws Reworked, sees Frahm shed his standard composer hat in favor of a more curatorial role.

In 2012, Frahm released Screws, a delicate collection of nine minimalist piano tracks for nine fingers. The German musician offered the album for free while recovering from a broken thumb – hence the nine fingers – and fans responded by sending him their own artistic reinterpretations of his works. Moved, Frahm opened an official repository for people to send him their adaptations. He’s since parsed the contributions into a single, cogent LP – that wasn’t an easy process, though.

“Whenever you have to decide between two things, you end up favouring one over the other,” Frahm said in the press release. “In the case of this record, I had to choose nine out of hundreds of songs – but I didn’t want to follow this logic, I didn’t want the songs to compete against each other… I knew that the only way to manage this tough job is to concentrate on the cohesiveness of listening to the songs all together.”

[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/164356141" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]

Ever the thoughtful soul, Frahm continued his statement by assuring all contributors that their music was in no way unappreciated.

“In case you don’t find your track here, please don’t think it stands behind the others. This record means, in fact, that some of the most beautiful songs couldn’t be included as they simply weren’t ‘good neighbours’ and because there is only one rework for each of my original compositions. However all of you opened your hearts and minds and shared your uniqueness with us and I feel incredibly blessed by each and every single rework of Screws. Thank you!”

Screws Reworked will be released on December 11 as a limited edition 2-CD/2-LP/DL via Erased Tapes. It caps a prolific year for Frahm that saw him score his first film, release two albums (one solo LP and one collaborative EP), and put his childhood band back together. Check out the forthcoming album’s tracklist below: