About

A TAV Curator’s Pick.

Opening with a text from Franz Kafka, read by Tilda Swinton, over a sparse piano melody, the album moves through the heart-wrenching ‘On The Nature Of Daylight’ through to sparse but lyrical piano pieces, hazy swirling atmospherics, avalanche pulse-beats and partially occluded melodies. Other sounds were generated via old guitar pedals and vocoders. The organ music was made for a chapel near Tourtres in South-West France, whilst the environmental sounds are mainly recorded around London.

Peppered across Richter’s music like diary entries (and backed with attendant typewriter clatter) are a number of literary texts or ‘shadow journals’ (from Kafka and Czseslaw Milosz’s ‘Hymn Of The Pearl’). Chosen by Max on instinct, these brief passages muse over time, memory, and the impermanent nature of things.

“ Not only the finest record of the last six months, but one of the most affecting and universal contemporary classical records in recent memory.” - Pitchfork

“...it’s a modern compositional tour de force of almost overwhelming emotional power...” - Time Out (Critics Choice)

“a compelling and highly emotive piece of Ambient-Noir... one of the most lovely of modern day compositions. Breathtaking.” - Sleaze Magazine

“Outstanding Neo-Classicism…deceptively tranquil, borderline supernatural music.” - Uncut Magazine 

“An album of astonishing depth and beauty” - The New Statesman

Source: Max Richter website

About Max Richter:

Hailed as the most influential composer of his generation, electro-acoustic polymath Max Richter defies definition: composer he may be, but he is also pianist, producer, remixer, and collaborator, and beyond argument one of the most prolific of contemporary musical artists.

Inspired equally by Bach, punk rock and ambient electronica, Richter’s sonic world blends a formal classical training (he graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, and was a pupil of renowned composer Luciano Berio) with modern technology. His unique and distinctive brand of heartbroken melodicism bridges the minimalist greats with pioneering electronics and the contemporary digital music production multiverse. Time Out has remarked on the ‘overwhelming emotional power’ of his work, the New Statesman has noted its ‘astonishing depth and beauty’ while Classic FM and Pitchfork have called it ‘stunning’ and The Guardian ‘languorously transcendent’.

Over the years Richter has become best known for his genre defining and highly influential solo albums which have given rise to and are seen as ‘landmarks’ (The Independent, Pitchfork) of the ever burgeoning ‘neo- classical’ movement, but his monumental collaborative output also encompasses concert music, operas, ballets, art and video installations, and multiple film, theatre and television scores.

The over 50 films featuring Max’s work and specifically written scores include Ari Folman’s multiple award-winning and devastating critique of war, Waltz with Bashir (for which Max was awarded the European Film Prize), Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and Damon Lindelof ’s first television project post-LOST, HBO’s The Leftovers.  – Max Richter website

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