Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Max Richter - The Blue Notebooks

Retrospective Review
Max Richter
The Blue Notebooks
(05.2004, Fat Cat)
10.0/10

Max Richter classifies his solo work as "post-classical," a word at which many people cringe, including myself in most instances. With so much cheesy forced emotion and boring drawn out contorted Bach out there it's difficult to sort through and really find the artists that are creating a new breed of classical that is actually listenable. The Blue Notebooks is more than just listenable, it's heartbreakingly incredible. It puts most striving modern day composers to shame. It's even puts quite a few old masters to shame. This album is a masterpiece. Inspired by Philip Glass and Kafka's Blue Octavo Notebooks, Richter built his own analog instruments, paired them with classical string instruments and made one of the most stunning and affecting albums ever recorded. The delicate melancholy songs were used to soundtrack one of my favorites movies of 2006, Stranger Than Fiction. The soundtrack made the movie. The Blue Notebooks is absolutely gorgeous and I would recommend it to anyone regardless of whether than enjoyed classical compositions or not.

-Sassigrass

Max Richter - "The Trees"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

holla, this album is the bombshazzle!