Nils Frahm @ RNCM, 28 October

In the dappled dark, Nils Frahm takes one sock-footed step towards the brink of the stage; picks up a microphone, and speaks. His intake of breath could be the first we've heard; at least since he began pulling the thick, wet electric coils of Says from his stacked synth setup. Angled between an upright and a grand piano, and contrasting their rubbed-wood gloss with its implacable matte fascia, his dashboard seems to square up to him – its presence on stage is an almost sentient thing, as tongues of forked red light sweep an unreadable black.

He jokes; says he's going to play something “boring,” a piece that began as a challenge to himself – after breaking his thumb – to compose for nine digits. It is Said and Done – beginning with the cracked-eggshell timbre of one harried note, it builds, making use of the strings' natural rattle, to an unhappy clamour. Elsewhere, the almost 20-minute, four-chapter sequence of For – Peter – Toilet Brushes – More is sheer bravura concert pianism, artistry as endurance test; the audience takes itself by surprise as it lets out a laugh at the reprieve of the final stretch, its playful, peanut-brittle staccato admonishing the too-serious organ of before. Those expecting either a conventional recital or the undemonstrative minimalism of Frahm's more laptop-heavy contemporaries are stunned: this is a physical, illustrative performance. What with the recent acclaim for A Winged Victory for the Sullen and Ólafur Arnalds' Kiasmos side project, Robert Raths' Erased Tapes imprint seems to be finally enjoying its day in the sun – Frahm having surely emerged as its headline act.