Sleep In Richter

Back in 2013 Heinz Riegler made a tape for A Guide To Saints, the cassette offshoot of Room40, called Sleep Health. It was designed conceptually as a sleep mechanism – Riegler was hoping that the rhythms would act as a therapeutic salve for his own insomnia and for a family member who was also struggling to find respite in the blissful arms of slumber. It isn’t the first time someone has composed music in order to aid or be heard during our sleep cycles - Cage, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young - even bloody Jeff Bridges has done an ambient spoken word recording designed to lull people into hibernation.

Now we can add to this rather obtuse sub-genre another work – SLEEP by British composer Max Richter – and it might be the big daddy of them all. SLEEP is thought to be the longest single piece of music ever to be recorded, at eight hours in length. Sound boring? That is kinda the point – Richter has designed the piece to render people unconscious – that is, to send listeners to sleep, “an eight-hour lullaby”. Richter describes it as a “manifesto for a slower pace of existence.” How it works is is an exploration of music, consciousness and human connectivity...

Now I can tell you I REALLY WANT TO GO TO THIS PREMIERE (anyone out there listening???). SLEEP will receive its world premiere this September in Berlin, in a concert performance lasting from 12 midnight to 8am at which the audience will be given beds instead of seats and programmes. For real. This is actually happening.

Now the full version will be released as a digital piece, with a one-hour rendition to be released through Deutsche Grammophon (pre-order here). And I'm sure the truncated piece will be great too – but who gives a shit? I want to go to this exhibition/performance piece and see if I can fall asleep to music and wake up a different person. Hang on – I DO THIS EVERY DAY. I think this is an incredibly interesting idea – but how do you gauge its success? If it bores you to sleep? What if you are genuinely tired? Will the music really have an effect? Will everyone have the same dream, or fall asleep at the same time? Will there be people placed in the crowd on meth, to see if it is a universal aural sedative? So many variables. At any rate, I want to see the result – but I can imagine tickets/beds to this thing will fly out the freaking door, so you better be quick.

Good Electro-Acoustic Morning!

Halfway through the week kids. Ive been delving into some of my more inoffensive offerings to help overcome a slight headache that has built up behind my eyes, but don't worry, Im not going to go all easy listening on your arses! Instead I have a couple of beuatiful tracks straight outta Bad Panda Records to help us ease into the day!

First up we have American Green, a Japanese artiste by the name of Takafumi Shirai. His music comes from a love of all kinds of coalescing, Coca Cola and coffee.

Then we have Bing and Ruth, an NY ambient post-rock outfit orchestrated by David Moore, and it is a true orchestration - 11 people singing and playing clarinets, cellos, bass, piano and percussion, all combining to interpret the slow building visceral dynamics that Moore has envisaged. There is an element of Max Richter in these orchestrations, although not quite as minimalist, which is a great thing.

American Green - She Goes To France
Bing And Ruth - Rails

I really like Bing and Ruth, so a couple of plugs - firstly they have a great double LP City Lake out worth chasing down (which 'Rails' is from) and secondly are playing with Black Heart Procession. And - what the heck - a music vid short film!

David Moore / Bing and Ruth - Take Away Show #102 from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Hope this helps you through this morning!

A Melancholic Tremor

Max Richter has done it again.

The multi-instrumentalist/mediast/composer/scorista has had a whirldwind 24 months, what with his award-winning involvement with the great film Waltz With Bashir, and his musical collaborations that litter the not-so-great Shutter Island. Plus his Infra score, whilst being his fifth album proper with Fat Cat, is his first sole soundtrack. This track, 'Infra 3', is breathtaking in its sadness - the melancholia inherent within the piano strokes evokes Yann Tiersen if he was more of a pessimist.

I really love Richter's stuff. I find any of this emotive musical scoring enthralling, and often it allows me to soar rather than wallow - thus the beauty and power of the instrument replete of vocals, thus remaining untarnished and forever open to hopefully unrestricted interpretation. Case in point - Kronos Quartet's seminal work on Aronofsky's Requiem For A Dream takes on a complete different shade when paired with the actions of the Fellowship in Lord of the Rings...and so I hope you find Richter. A rich seam of untapped beauty and emotion. Highly recommended.

Max Richter - Infra