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Infra is the 2010 album by neo-classical composer Max Richter, released on July 19, 2010 on FatCat Records. – Wiki

“Max Richter's music could broadly be classified as neo-classical, or ambient, or electro-acoustic chamber music. These descriptors give you an idea of his sound, but they don't tell you what the music feels like. So while I can recognize those generic touchstones, I hear Richter's music first as night music, sound that makes darkness feel alive.

…Infra fairly brims with these qualities. Scored for piano, electronics, and string quartet, it's an expansion of a 25-minute piece Richter wrote for a collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor and artist Julian Opie. The latter contributed video projections of scenes from everyday life that ran behind the dancers. I can see how the music might complement the piece. His work has an amazing ability to interact with and elevate banality. It's not an uncommon trick to pair a mundane shot-- two businessmen shaking hands, someone cleaning out a garage, birds landing on a wire-- with slow and pretty music. But when it's done well, such juxtapositions still have the power to turn the everyday rigmarole we're seeing onscreen into something emotionally charged.

Here, on "Infra 7", Richter pulls the strings through electronic processing to give them a hollow, glassy tone that's completely at odds with the sound of vibrating strings bouncing off wood, the dominant sound of the rest of the album. And by setting you momentarily outside of the rich texture he's acclimated you to, he makes you feel all the more at home when it comes back, full bore, on "Infra 8".

…Infra works as an enveloping and moving work even absent any knowledge of its beginnings. Others may glean different feelings from it than I do, but that is part of the point. Even if it conjures nothing of the night for you, it is some of Richter's very best work. And if you've ever cared about his music, it will make you feel something.” – Pitchfork

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