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It seems the 'postcard' is the perfect mode of expression for Max Richter's music. The composer is able to conjure a mood within seconds, and these brief but sharply focussed snapshots, intended for use as ringtones, join to make a coherent whole.
As a founder member of the ensemble Piano Circus, it comes as no surprise to learn his music draws from the music of Philip Glass and Brian Eno, both of whom he worked with during his ten years there. Yet there are also brief shades of his teacher, the composer Luciano Berio, that create an interesting tension and make the musical directions taken in the pictures less predictable.
The softly melancholic piano of H In New England hints that the title of the first piece, The Road Is A Grey Tape, might be indicative of a general lack of colour throughout the cycle. Yet this is not the case, and the electric violin floating on a suspended chord in A Sudden Manhattan Of The Mind brings a brighter hue. The same instrument reappears in I Was Just Thinking, a snippet of melody that sounds like an extended Bach Sarabande, and in Berlin By Overnight, where it takes on a less effective and more clearly Glass-derived heaviness.
Elsewhere the brief mood paintings touch on electronic, more machine-based music. It's a shame Tokyo Riddle Song isn't given more time to fully germinate, as it begins promisingly with softly chattering mechanical patterns that pan out suddenly to more graceful piano melancholia.
What Richter does particularly well is keep a shade of foreboding throughout, so that the music retains the listener's air and doesn't park itself too comfortably on the sofa. Even towards the end, in a piano driven track such as Found Song For P, there's the low rasp of a cello to add a hint of doubt into proceedings. And while the harmonies he uses are usually consonants, there are rogue notes here and there to throw up a few questions.
This means the music is presented as an accomplished whole that works extremely well as background music, but rewards the ear of a listener attempting to dip beneath the surface. It has all the cinematic elements that are making Richter an in-demand film composer, but allows in this case the audience to create their own, highly individual pictures, creating in this respect a highly personal album.
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