Nils Oliver Frahm + Peter Ray Broderick = Oliveray.

Being musical companions and label buddies for many years, it was just a matter of time until Peter Broderick and Nils Frahm would start their first standalone project together. Oliveray was born during a time when both artists were living in Berlin and Frahm supporting Broderick on tour. Their debut release Wonders — a nice little collection of eight musical pieces — was released on Erased Tapes in 2011.

In a blog post titled Say hello to Oliveray! Peter wrote: “I am super excited to announce the debut release from a project very dear to me! Oliveray consists of me, Peter Ray Broderick, and one of my greatest friends in the world, the incredible musician and producer Nils Oliver Frahm. We’ve been collaborating in many ways these past couple years and traveling a lot together. Now finally we have arrived with our first truly 50/50 collaboration effort entitled Wonders.

It all started when I was asked to create a cover version for my great friends Efterklang. I asked Nils if he’d like to work with me on the project. So one day we got together in his studio and ran through the song (Harmonics) a couple times and then laid it down to tape in the most relaxed way possible – me playing the guitar and singing and him on the piano… We were both really happy and inspired with how easy and fun this process was. We thought you could hear and feel that relaxed atmosphere in the song.

So when our Japanese friends Cote Labo asked us to prepare some kind of release for our Japan tour, me and Nils set aside a couple days to record some music in a similar manner. Without much preconception we just set up the mics and started recording, with an aim to create a short album of half instrumentals, half vocal-based songs. We ran through a few fresh musical ideas that each of us had, improvising along with each other, sometimes just improvising entirely. And before we new it we had a nice little collection of eight intimate pieces of music. The first official output of what will hopefully be a lifelong collaboration, Wonders feels really special to me. Here comes Oliveray!“

“Wonders is a marvel“ — La Blogothéque

Note: the CD version of Wonders is available from our Japanese friends Cote Labo.