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; beautifully written piano and string sections, atmospheric electronic touches, at once understated and epic, harrowingly emotional and melancholic themes. Richter’s strong narrative sense undoubtedly serves the purpose of story-telling through dance, but without the visual aspect of the work, his music remains as evocative and poignant as ever. The sweeping Nyman-esque piano solo of Infra 3 for instance echoes similar earlier moments from The Blue Notebooks (Vladimir’s Blues) or Memoryhouse (The Twins, Andras), while the mournful Journey 5 or Infra 6 are underpinned by distant radio interferences and, on the latter, voices.

The more orchestral moments appear to take on a particular dimension here. The lead violin on Infra 4 floats very lightly over a recurring cello line in the backdrop, and even later on, when the rest of the string quintet provides a stronger backdrop, it is still the first violin that captivates. Equally, the contemplative nature of pieces such as Journey 4, Infra 5 or Infra 7 is gracefully accentuated by delicate brushes of string work, whilst Infra 8, which concludes, opens with a lone violin, then slowly builds into a particularly refined piece as more layers are added. What is especially stunning in this composition is the way both melody and orchestration continuously ebb and flow through the entire piece. This is perhaps one of Richter’s strongest compositions in a long while.

While the two trends of this record are not immediately related, they are woven into each other and actually work very well together. To bind these further, they are often mixed into one another to create the impression of a seamless flow. Richter’s use of electronics is here more discreet than on previous works, but on Infra 2, Journey 2, 3 or 5, he places distortions, interferences and dense electronic textures at the fore and creates interesting shaded zones where the certainty of the acoustic instruments is shaken to its very foundation. Infra was never conceived as a standalone record, yet it actually works quite beautifully as such and is a worthy addition to Richter’s catalogue.

4.3/5

Max Richter | Max Richter (MySpace) | Fat-Cat Records
Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP

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.

JOANNA NEWSOM
Ys
DC303CD
Drag City 2006
05 Tracks. 55mins41secs
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An album like no other, by an artist like no other. Containing just five songs, some developed over fifteen minutes, Ys, named after a small mythical city on the coast of Brittany, France, is the second album by American folk singer and harp player Joanna Newsom. Van Dyke Parks wraps lush orchestrations around Joanna Newsom’s weird and wonderful tales to give her poetic lyrics additional relief and accentuate the emotional nature of her compositions.

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MURCOF
Martes
BAY23CD
The Leaf Label 2002
09 Tracks. 51mins55secs
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Sampling contemporary classical works and assembling them into stark electronic pieces, propelled by micro beats and glitches, Mexican artist Fernando Corona, recording under the name Murcof, created one of the most compelling and evocative electronic debuts of the decade.

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BROADCAST
Tender Buttons
WARPCD136
Warp Records 2005
14 Tracks. 40mins32secs
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By the time they released their third album, Broadcast had simmer down to just Trish Keenan and James Cargill, and had shed most of the rich and ornate forms of previous records to only retain the gritty electronic core of their music.

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ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
Merriweather Post Pavilion
WIGCD216
Domino Recording Co. 2009
11 Tracks. 54mins42secs
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Merriweather Post Pavilion is a far cry from the primal tribal sound of Animal Collective’s early records, yet it is also a testament of how the band have retained the essence of their sound while continuously evolving into more song-based forms.

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PORTISHEAD
Third
1764013
Island Records 2008
11 Tracks. 50mins06secs
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It took over ten years for Portishead to release the follow up to their eponymous second album, but Third proved worth the wait. Gone was the trip-hop of the mid-nineties, replaced with healthy doses of Krautrock, but at the heart of it still lies ‘that voice’.

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ARVE HENRIKSEN
Cartography
ECM2086
ECM Records 2008
12 Tracks. 51mins11secs
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After three genre-defining albums for Rune Grammofon, Arve Henriksen’s Cartography, released on ECM, showed a more mature approach. Working with the cream of Scandinavian jazz, Henriksen created with this fourth album a truly masterful work.

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BIOSPHERE
Dropsonde
TO66LP
Touch 2005
06 Tracks. 37mins52secs
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After a series of increasingly isolationist ambient records, Biosphere’s Geir Jenssen took a different path with his eighth album, incorporating jazz rhythms and richer, warmer soundscapes into his sumptuous ambient compositions.

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CLARK
Body Riddle
WARPCD149
Warp Records 2006
11 Tracks. 42mins21secs
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Clark has established himself as the most consistent of Warp’s electronic artists of the decade with a string of excellent electronic records. Gritty, raw and angular, Body Riddle, his third album, defined Clark’s sound more than any other.

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AUTECHRE
Quaristice / Quaristice (Versions)
WARPCD333X0
Warp Records 2008
11 Tracks. 67mins49secs
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Seventeen years on from their first release, Autechre continue to redefine their sound record after record. Quaristice, with shorter, snappier tracks, showed a return to more accessible musical forms, while its sister album, Quaristice (Versions), offered totally different versions of some of the same tracks.

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BURIAL
Untrue
HDBC002
Hyperdub Records 2007
10 Tracks. 50mins28secs
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A strong progression from the clinical dubstep of Burial’s debut, Untrue introduced haunting voices and swirling melodies, wrapped around razor sharp beats.

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TWINE
Twine
GI18
Ghostly International 2003
09 Tracks. 63mins32secs
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Twine’s fourth album constituted the pinnacle of the duo’s electro-acoustic work. Processing acoustic and electric instruments and incorporating them in their complex electronic constructions, occasionally adding vocal samples, they created a truly compelling record.

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BENOÎT PIOULARD
Précis
KRANK098
Kranky 2006
14 Tracks. 36mins52secs
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Combining delicate acoustic song forms and electronics, American musician Thomas Meluch, recording as Benoît Pioulard, produced a stunning record, filled with poetic touches and intelligent pop music.

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THE BLACK DOG WITH BLACK SIFICHI
Unsavoury Products
PUPLP3
Hydrogen Dukebox 2002
20 Tracks. 65mins26secs
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Prior to The Black Dog becoming a trio again, Ken Downie recorded this record with Scottish poet Black Sifichi, who can be heard throughout the album placing his odd surrealist tales over Downie’s impeccably classy electronica.

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MAX RICHTER
The Blue Notebooks
CD1304
130701/Fat-Cat Records 2004
11 Tracks. 40mins36secs
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One of the brightest talents on the new classical scene, composer and pianist Max Richter created a truly evocative piece of work with his second album, mixing delicate piano pieces, compositions for string quartets, discreet electronics and found sounds.

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THE VILLAGE ORCHESTRA
Et In Arcadia Ego
HPLL014
Highpoint Lowlife 2005
09 Tracks. 57mins00secs
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The first album by Marcia Blaine School For Girls member Ruaridh Law was released five years ago on the excellent Highpoint Lowlife, deploying inspired atmospheric soundscapes and complex beat structures over just under an hour.

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310
Recessional
BAY33CD
The Leaf Label 2003
15 Tracks. 54mins37secs
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Combining elements of hip-hop, jazz, electronica and folk has been at the core of 310’s work for over a decade now, but on their fifth album, their third for Leaf, the duo formed of Joseph Dierker and Tim Donovan gave their sound a more accessible twist while losing none of its original intricacy.

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VARIOUS PRODUCTION
The World Is Gone
XLCD204
XL Recordings 2006
12 Tracks. 46mins52secs
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Operating under a rather anonymous name, British duo Various Production conjured the contradictory forces of urban dubstep and pastoral folk into one fascinating record, served by a plethora of vocal contributors.

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COLLEEN ET LES BOITES A MUSIQUE
Colleen Et Les Boîtes A Musique
BAY53CD
The Leaf Label 2006
14 Tracks. 38mins55secs
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French artist has released three magnificent records in the last decade, yet it is this mini album, originally commissioned by French public service radio station France Culture, composed entirely on music boxes and processed on computer later on, that has proved the most enduring, evocative and poetic of the lot.

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SUPERSILENT
6
RCD2029
Rune Grammofon 2003
06 Tracks. 57mins51secs
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The sixth album by Norwegian super group Supersilent showed yet another dimension to the quartet’s incredibly vast repertoire by investigating the slightly more subtle ambient side of their improvisation work.

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BEN FROST
Theory Of Machines
HVALUR2
Bedroom Community 2006
05 Tracks. 38mins40secs
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Australian musician Ben Frost’s first album for Bedroom Community was like a series of shockwaves delivered in the space of forty minutes and five tracks. A deeply haunting and often threatening record, it continues to make a considerable mark.

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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. The album has been out of print for some time, but Brighton-based Fat-Cat, which has been Richter’s home for over five years, is now making this collection available once again.

Right from the opening composition, Richter combines field recordings and distant voices with a lone piano and mournful violin, orchestral work and creates a beautiful cinematic setting, which is then developed through the whole record in a variety of forms. Richter often works with recurring melodic themes in a particular piece, played at various levels of intensity, so the minimal aspect of his work is countered by an impression of stratification. Applied indifferently to a single instrument of a full orchestra, this, not the use of field recordings, gives his music its particular melancholic nature, the latter, at times isolated into miniature interludes, only serve to accentuate or nuance the overall emotional élan of a piece. This is perhaps most apparent on the two solo piano compositions (The Twins (Prague) and Andras) but it also transpires particularly vividly on the string-led Maria The Poet (1913), November, Landscape With Figure (1922), Embers or the sweeping orchestral Last Days.

While this appears to be Richter’s primary stylistic expression, and one that’s been developed further on more recent works, it doesn’t drive the whole record. On Laika’s Journey, he strips his instrumentation bare, leaving only a treated piano to cast an ill-shadow over a sombre hum, and on Untitled (Figures), he sends electronic pulses through the main melody, while much later, on Fragment, a solitary violin draws an autumnal melody over a recording of rain falling.

Memoryhouse is particularly beautiful and surprisingly dense collection, and while it doesn’t explicitly follow a particular narrative, it is still bound together by the emotional scope of the compositions and their mise-en-scene. Richter has proved since that he has a flair for carving out particularly effective evocative compositions, and this re-edition show how he was already in full command of his art then.

4.4/5

Max Richter | Max Richter (MySpace) | Fat-Cat Records
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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.

While he has worked with an impressive number of musicians and bands over the years, including regular collaborations with Future Sound Of London and production work for Vashti Bunyan and Kelli Ali, Richter came to the attention of most with his neo-classical work, collected on a handful of albums released since 2002. His debut, Memoryhouse, originally published on the BBC’s now defunct Late Junction imprint, is in the process of being made available once again through Fat-Cat. For this performance, Richter, on piano, keyboard and electronics, was joined on stage by a string quintet.

During the first half of the performance, Richter and his ensemble brought some of his early compositions together, lifted from Memoryhouse as well as The Blue Notebooks and Songs From Before, giving a comprehensive overview of his work up to now and introducing the second half of the evening. New piece From The Art Of Mirrors, commissioned by Fuse06 to accompany some rarely seen super8 footage by experimental British film maker Derek Jarman, opened with recordings of fire crackling over distant voices, eventually relayed on screen by hugely distorted images of a small burning fire. The announced film sequences only materialised intermittently, predominantly during Richter’s solo contributions, leaving the focus on the performers for most of the orchestral parts.

There was here a much deeper emphasis on Richter’s atmospheric side than on previous works, especially as pictures of a galaxy were superimposed with flickering images of people walking on beaches, derelict houses or deserted landscapes. The string formation was not left out of the equation entirely, far from it. As the atmospheric components retreated, they wove beautiful layers around moving chords, at times accentuating the emotional scope of the images projected on screen, at others creating delicate brushes to soften their impact. Using many of Richter’s traditional themes and chord progressions, From The Art Of Mirrors also introduced some interesting new elements, especially on the latter part, where the pace picked up greatly from the initial rampant melancholy to develop into much more sweeping and, toward the end, rather vigorous moments.

In recent years, Max Richter has written scores for a number of soundtracks, giving the natural emotional landscapes of his work an appropriate outlet. In this particular context, it is very much Derek Jarman’s disjointed and often odd films which were given a poignant slant, Richter’s nuanced music creating subtle shaded areas where Jarman’s images at times appeared harsh, while his extensive electronics worked to give strength to some of the most disturbing moments.

Max Richter | Max Richter (MySpace) | Fat-Cat Records | Union Chapel | Margins Project

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. Very much like a flickering old movie, melodies flash by, often too short to allow focus. Richter has gathered a string septet, with additional contribution from guitarist Preston Reed, while he takes care of the piano, found sounds and other noise textures. At times, the pieces seem to be perfectly defined, with a clear beginning and end, while at others, they are cut short, as if to hint at hidden treasures. It is a process that Richter has employed in the past, but here, the effect is greatly accentuated by the brevity of the compositions.

As a stand-alone record, 24 Postcards In Full Colour actually works superbly well. Very much like on previous records, Richter alternates between solo piano, string ensemble and textural moments, occasionally mixing them to give more depth to his work. The addition of guitar-led sections, on In Louisville At 7 or A Song For H for instance adds a touch of electricity to the mix. On Return To Prague, the guitar becomes less defined, the melody is cloudier, evoking for a moment the Cocteau Twins of Victorialand. Elsewhere, the structure of his pieces is more minimal and sparse than on previous work, and while atmospheric moments can at times fill the space with very little, at others, silences are as material as instruments.

Max Richter has become one of the most prominent of the contemporary classical movement, and this is due in part to his enthusiasm for bringing together tradition and modernity. His music often feels timeless, and this all-too short collection perhaps even more so. Richter knows how to interact with emotions and moods in such an elegant fashion than his music cannot fail to captivate, even when it is, like here, just a flicker in time.

4.6/5

Max Richter (MySpace) | Fat-Cat Records
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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.

Most of the compositions interpreted during the performance relied on Jóhannsson’s melancholic piano melodies, supported by the string quartet, but often, electronic textures were noticed developing in the background. Ten minutes in the performance, as the dying notes of the previous piece still peppered the air, a low-end hum began to rise, progressively developing into an overwhelming drone as the string quartet were ineluctably swallowed by the dark sonic mass. While nothing of such a scale was to be repeated, it cast a resolutely modern shadow over Jóhannsson’s work and his approach to both melodic aspects and noise-based formations.

Jóhannsson’s rendition of some of the most beautiful moments of Englabörn, including the haunting Odi Et Amo and Joi Et Karen, with which the ensemble opened, and some sequences from IBM and Dris offered a delicate balance of tones against the more experimental moments, building on the melodic theme of each piece, even when at its more minimal, to define the emotional nature of Jóhannsson’s music.

Following a short interval, a rather cheerful-looking Max Richter walked on stage with a string quintet in tow. Very much like on Richter’s records, the performance alternated between beautiful piano and string pieces and textural moments, at times augmented with texts. Richter and his ensemble presented a selection of tracks lifted primarily from his two Fat-Cat albums, the stunning The Blue Notebooks and Songs From Before. The set kicked off with the voice of Robert Wyatt reading a poem from Japanese author Haruki Murakami as heard on Songs From Before, and from that moment, Richter, busying himself between piano, laptop and keyboard, shaped the emotional landscape of the evening as darkness progressively enveloped the audience as the last rays of sunshine sunk away through the windows of the Union Chapel.

The fragility of the music was constantly highlighted with the intrusion of external sounds, whether it was the siren of an emergency vehicle zooming past outside or a door closing too noisily in the back of the church, yet, these were, for most part, mere grain in the soundtrack that was being played. Warm and elegant volutes of stings and piano, alternating at the forefront, and cinematic amalgamations of noises and sounds placed as moody interludes, contributed to the performance being at once truly enthralling and dreamy, with the voices of Wyatt or of British actress Tilda Swinton only adding to the gentle otherworldlyness of the night, emanating from nowhere in particular. The recurring guitar loop of Shadow Journal set against delicate string work and deep rhythmic thuds, the warm organ waves of Organum, the autumnal shades of Song or the light glow of Arboretum developed in front of the audience out of nothing, delicately shaped by a formation in apparent symbiosis.

Both Jóhann Jóhannsson and Max Richter rewarded the audience for preferring an evening of contemporary classical music to the finale of Euro 2008 with beautiful performances of some of their respective back catalogue and each of their performance resonated through the beautiful venue, served as they deserved to be.

Max Richter | Jóhann Jóhannsson | Fat-Cat Records | 4AD | Touch

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.

It is not until his sophomore effort, The Blue Notebooks, published two years later on Fat-Cat’s sub-label 130701, that Richter’s profile became more prominent. While Richter’s debut combined classical instrumentation and discreet electronics, the process was developed further on The Blue Notebooks to add grain and texture to the music. He has since been involved in a variety of projects, including producing the long-awaited second album by folk legend Vashti Bunyan.

For Songs From Before, Richter has teamed up with the same string ensemble as on The Blue Notebooks, augmented with readings from Japanese poet Haruki Murakami by Robert Wyatt. Very much like on its predecessors, Songs From Before is haunted by rampant melancholy and swirling melodic themes, creating a dense atmospheric backdrop for more subtle ornamental elements to flourish.

Richter shares a deep sense of minimalism with the likes of Steve Reich or Arvo Pärt, but there is a more cinematic and evocative feel to his compositions, at times evoking the work of Michael Nyman, or Ennio Morricone even. This contributes greatly in Richter’s music being at once superbly forward-thinking and extremely accessible. From the sparse melodies of Song or Flowers For Yulia to the crystalline lines of Fragment, Autumn Music 1 or Sunlight and the dense torpor of Ionosphere, Time Passing or Lullaby, Richter plays tricks with the mind by constantly affecting the atmospheric canvas of his compositions. Wyatt’s smoky voice surfaces at regular interval, adding grain to the spellbinding aspect of the music.

Songs From Before doesn’t instantly appear that different from its predecessors, and in many ways, it is not. Richter is said to view his work as a composer as a long evolutionary process, and this album reflects this in the way it feels very much in tune with both Memoryhouse and The Blue Notebooks, but each one of these records has a particular density, and Songs From Before is no exception.

Explore: Max Richter | Fat-Cat Records
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