MAX RICHTER
Infra
CD13-11
130701/Fat-Cat Records 2010
13 Tracks. 40mins39secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP

Max Richter has become very much in demand these days, with a number of increasingly high-profile projects under his belt, from soundtrack work, his score for Ari Forman’s animated memoire Waltz With Bashir earned him a European Film Award for best composer in 2008, to art installations. One such commission came from English modern dance choreographer Wayne McGregor, who enlisted Richter to provide the score for Infra, a ballet inspired by T.S. Elliot’s poem The Waste Land, and a collaboration between McGregor, Richter and Welsh visual artist Julian Opie, which premiered at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London at the end of 2008. The performance, and work around it, was also the subject of a documentary broadcast on BBC 2 that same year.

Presented here in expanded form, with the original eight compositions created for Infra intertwined with an additional five pieces inspired, as their titles suggest, by the notion of journey, this record is typical of Richter’s work Continue Reading »

MAX RICHTER
Memoryhouse
CD1309/LP1309
130701/Fat-Cat Records 2009
18 Tracks. 65mins04secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP Amazon US: CD Boomkat: CD

Max Richter spent his formative years studying music and composition in Edinburgh and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, then went on to form Piano Circus with five other pianists in the late eighties in order to perform Steve Reich’s Six Pianos. He stayed with the formation for ten years, working on pieces by composers such as Reich, Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass, Terry Riley or Michael Nyman, during which time he also collaborated with Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans of The Future Sound Of London for a number of years, notably contributing to the pair’s Dead Cities album in 1996, and The Isness in 2002.

Recorded with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and originally published on the BBC’s short-lived Late Junction imprint in 2002, Memoryhouse was the first of Richter’s records as a composer, and established the blueprint for his work to follow, blending often melancholic orchestral themes and piano solos, peppering them with discreet electronics and samples of conversations. Continue Reading »

Hosted at the Union Chapel in Islington and organised by the good people over at Arctic Circle, this week saw a series of performances collected under the Marginalised banner, in support of the Margins Project, an charity operating from the back of the Union Chapel for people who are homeless or in crisis in London, with performances by Gavin Bryars and Max Richter and events focusing on the music of Vernon Elliot and Michael Nyman. Before the performance took place, an introduction to the charity was presented to the audience in the form of a short film, highlighting the need for such an organisation in the area, the relentless work of voluntaries and the major drop in donations resulting of the current economic climate. Marginalised, in its second year, gives a chance to put on a program of events and generate some revenue for Margins. Continue Reading »

MAX RICHTER
24 Postcards In Full Colour
CD1307/DS1307/LP1307
130701/Fat-Cat Records 2008
24 Tracks. 34mins33secs

Max Richter’s latest offering is not, so the press release claims, the follow up to his 2006 album Songs From Before. In fact, the twenty four tracks assembled here are part of a much wider experiment, due to be performed in art galleries, with at its centre mobile phone technology. Audience members will be able to pre-register their phone number and receive SMS messages triggering specific tracks, making each performance totally unpredictable and unique.

Beyond the concept and the cold technological practicality, Max Richter revisits here some of his favourite themes (the passing of time, the ephemeral aspect of memories, the melancholy of leaving places behind) and assembles them into miniature vignettes which, in most case, last little more than a moment. Continue Reading »

Max Richter gave a rare live performance at the Union Chapel in London’s Islington, ahead of the release of his latest project, 24 Postcards In Full Colour, on Fat-Cat in July, and, opening the evening for him was Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson.

Jóhannsson took the stage accompanied with a string quartet and one additional personnel on electronics. With the string quartet positioned centre stage, Jóhannsson found himself stuck in the background between a baby grand piano and his keyboards. Jóhannsson has, since the release of his debut album, Englabörn, in 2002 on Touch and reissued last year on 4AD, established himself as one of the best contemporary classical composers around and has, beside his own records, composed music for films and plays and has also been involved with a handful of side projects. For this London performance, Jóhannsson focused exclusively on his solo work, presenting tracks taken essentially from Englabörn and IBM 1401, A User’s Manual, with a couple of more rhythmic pieces sourced from Dis. Continue Reading »

MAX RICHTER
Songs From Before
CD1305
130701 / Fat-Cat Records 2006
12 Tracks. 37mins18secs

British-born composer and musician Max Richter studied composition and piano at Edinburgh University and at the Royal Academy Of Music before pursuing his studies in Florence under the late Italian composer Luciano Berio. Richter then co-founded contemporary classical ensemble Piano Circus in 1989, and spent ten years performing works by Arvo Pärt, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Graham Fitkins, Louis Andriessen, Brian Eno and many more with them. During this time, he developed an interest for sampling and electronic instrumentation, which led him to work with The Future Sound Of London on their 1996 album Dead Cities. His first album as a composer and musician, Memoryhouse, was recorded with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and released on the BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction imprint in 2002. Continue Reading »

EMANUELE ERRANTE
Time Elapsing Handheld
KALKCD57/KALKLP61
Karaoke Kalk 2011
07 Tracks. 44mins10secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD

The boundary between leftfield atmospheric electronica and modern classical is forever getting more blurred as musicians cross-pollinate each genre with elements borrowed from the other. Composers such as Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson or Ólafur Arnalds have done a lot to democratise the use of electronic textures and field recordings in classical music through their respective work, while on the other side, the likes of Murcof, Deaf Center or much of the Miasmah roster have incorporated classical forms and instruments into their electronic set up. One such musician is Italian experimental sound artist Emanuele Errante, whose previous two albums, Migrations (Apegenine, 2006) and Humus (Somnia, 2008), treaded the line between electronica and classical rather convincingly, drawing comparison to Deaf Center, Marsen Jules and Rafael Anton Irisarri amongst others. Continue Reading »

DUSTIN O’HALLORAN
Lumiere
CD1314/LP1314
130701/Fat-Cat Records 2011
09 Tracks. 43mins18secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP

A grainy, flickery and blurred vision of what could be a heavy curtain of the type you use to find in cinemas before the days of multiplex complexes, upon which is projected a name and a word, LUMIERE, appearing fuzzy and distorted; the cover of Dustin O’Halloran’s debut for Fat-Cat’s modern classical sister imprint 130701 spells things out loud and clear even before a single note has played: this is cinematic music. But, if both the title, French for light, but, more fittingly, also the name of the two pioneering French filmmaker brothers who premiered their first film in Paris in 1895, and the visual shown on the cover, could lead to think that this album pays tribute to the art of cinematography, it is not quite the case. Continue Reading »

As 2010 bows out, it is time to look back on a year that has been rich in new music, some from very well established artists, and some from entirely new comers. Here are themilkfactory’s twenty favourite records of the year, and this year for the first time, this list is augmented with thirty other records that have marked the year.

With no less than four albums in the top 20, the year belonged to Rune Grammofon, and more particularly to Supersilent, who occupy two places, including the top spot. Room40 also place two albums in the twenty best records on 2010, while new imprints Desire Path, Hibernate and Textura also feature with some strong releases.
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HAUSCHKA
Foreign Landscapes
CD1312
130701/Fat-Cat Records 2010
12 Tracks. 55mins41secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD Amazon US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP iTunes: DLD

Imagine for a moment going through border controls with a panoply of gaffa tape rolls, ping pong balls, kitchen foil, little hammers, guitar strings, pegs and other random objects, all with the purpose of playing music. This is a daily occurrence for German musician Hauschka, who has made the prepared piano his instrument of predilection. Hailing from Düsseldorf, Volker Bertelmann, a classically-trained pianist, released his first album, Substantial, on Karaoke Kalk in 2004, and followed it with the self-explanatory The Prepared Piano a year later. Signed to Fat-Cat’s modern classical sister label 130701 since 2007, Bertelmann has since considerably developed his composition style, and his latest offering, Foreign Landscapes, represents once again a massive step forward. Continue Reading »

The noughties have seen probably the most radical changes in the music industries since the advent of the record. Consumption habits have dramatically moved from traditional to digital formats, music has been increasingly seen as something to steal rather than to buy, and listening habits means that nowadays, the album is becoming increasingly redundant. Or is it? Whereas it had, at least in some circles, become totally acceptable to fill records with substandard music, it is now essential for artists to create consistent pieces of work if they want to retain the attention of their audience. The last ten years have delivered their fair share of hits and misses, and this list doesn’t pretend to be in any way shape or form exhaustive. This is just, in no particular order, the definitive list of the 20 albums that have defined the noughties at themilkfactory.

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NILS FRAHM
The Bells
ERATP21
Erased Tapes 2009
11 Tracks. 40mins12secs

NILS FRAHM
Wintermusik
ERATP18
Erased Tapes 2009
03 Tracks. 29mins58secs

The Bells
Amazon UK: DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

Wintermusik
Amazon UK: CD Amazon US: DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

London imprint Erased Tapes continues in its quest to unleash some of the most beautiful music around with its latest signing, German pianist and composer Nils Frahm, who delivers not one, but two releases in as many weeks. During his formative years, Frahm studied piano with Nahum Brodski before going on to work on his own music. Based in Berlin, where he has established his studio and shares his time between production and composition, Frahm has already featured on a number of releases and has worked with the likes of Peter Broderick or Machinefabriek’s Rutger Zuyderveltd. Continue Reading »