* 180g pressing, including voucher for free download.
Hailed as the most influential composer of his generation, electro-acoustic polymath Max Richter defies definition: composer he may be, but he is also pianist, producer, remixer, and collaborator, and beyond argument one of the most prolific of contemporary musical artists.
Inspired equally by Bach, punk rock and ambient electronica, Richters sonic world blends a formal classical training (he graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, and was a pupil of renowned composer Luciano Berio) with modern technology.
Beautifully recorded and cinematic in scope, Songs From Before once again carries a pensive, emotionally resonant tone. Punctuated by Robert Wyatts distinctive, understated readings of Haruki Murakamis text, the music evokes forgotten memories or lost histories, a series of bittersweet articulations that seem suspended somewhere between a dreamy sense of awe and melancholia. The title refers to the fact that, as well as this being a kind of specimen case of music written over a long period, the album carries other music inside it - with the sources ranging from music between 5 and 300 years old - either used as starting points for Maxs own writing, or submerged deep within.
