During the more restless autumn days there is one cd which brings me in a state of calmness: Songs From Before, the new ‘post-classical’ creation of Max Richter. Its delicate music is comparable to his previous album The Blue Notebooks (2004), though with slightly sparser compositions.

Again Richter (born in Germany but based in Edinburgh) builds up his music by combining melancholic string parts and minimal piano passages with crackling electronic sounds and subtle sample collages. To stress the filmic qualities of this album even more, short text fragments from Haruki Murakami (one of my favourite authors) are being read by Robert Wyatt (who you might know of Soft Machine and his solo hit ‘Shipbuilding’).

Songs From Before is a rather short album, just 37 minutes, but I find it a pleasant length. It’s just enough to bring me in the right dreamy mood, and not too long to fall asleep. I’ve enjoyed this album quite frequently in the last two months, with ‘Autumn Music 2′ as my favourite (romantic) song.

Author: HD. Published on: Monday, November 27th, 2006.
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