Album Review: Max Richter - Disconnect

Album Rating: B+

For a film exploring the sense of isolation created by an ever “connected” world, it probably wouldn't be much of a risk to employ a musician whose most successful work focuses on, among other things, isolation. Less of a risk still to actually use some excerpts from said critically acclaimed and popular album about isolation in said film about isolation which no doubt hopes to be both critically acclaimed and popular. After your mind’s tongue has untied itself from the previous sentence, it should not be a great effort to imagine the film and soundtrack working together rather nicely. Sadly, however, the soundtrack could be seen to be a little wanting in isolation. Within the film, I don’t know - it isn't out yet.

Album Retrospective: Max Richter - The Blue Notebooks

Album rating: A

As a co-founder of the Piano Circus ensemble, Max Richter spent his early musical career commissioning and performing works by such minimalist greats as Arvo Part, Steve Roach and Brian Eno. His most outstanding contribution to any particular release in this pre-debut phase was his continued work with ambient/electronic legends Future Sound of London; or more specifically his key involvement in arguably their most game-changing release, Dead Cities. This commitment to ambient music is something we see him toy with in his 2002 debut Memoryhouse, which leant more towards ‘documentary music’ and as such was prone to experiments in tone and style, but it isn’t really something Richter truly embraced until The Blue Notebooks. His sophomore effort combines a very focussed, direct and (since his debut) refined approach with the ambition still fresh from his no-doubt inspiring early work with some of the late-20th century’s greatest composers. The Blue Notebooks takes the classic structure of ambient segments lying in the wake of contemplative soundbites, yet is somehow more than that. The music itself is comprised almost entirely of piano and strings, though again seems in some way to be just a little bit more than its component parts.