Customer Reviews

Infra

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Falling in love with Max Richter's music is easy. Lovers of electronica, modern classical, and simple piano music alike, follow Richter's releases, and gobble them up with their ears. The music of endless dreams and cinematic wakefulness, sprinkled with electric pulses of shortwave radio transmissions and somber tones, rises above the ground like a waterfall of fog, falling into the abyss of subconsciousness and repressed memories. Beautiful and simple melodies soar through the air with orchestral precision, neo-classical progression and heartbreaking execution. Infra is actually a soundtrack. Commissioned by the Royal Ballet, Infra is a score for the same titled ballet as choreographed by Wayne McGregor, which originally premiered at The Royal Opera House in London in November 2008. Being more than a studio album, the work on Infra is comprised of recurring themes and a central concept. The latter is inspired by T.S. Elliot's "The Wasteland", building on a travelogue of desolate lands, populated by the sounds of piano, electronics and a string quartet. Here's a quote from Richter: "I started thinking about making a piece on the theme of journeys. Like a road movie. Or a traveler's notebook. Or like the second unit in a film - when the scene has been played, and the image cuts away to the landscape going by. This started me thinking about Schubert's devastating and haunting "Winterreise" (Winter Journey), so I used some melodic material from Schubert as a found object in parts of my new piece." I must be honest - I wouldn't recommend this album to the heart broken. The sweeping melodies will pull your soul apart and squeeze the last remaining tears from your withered heart. Saturated in sadness to the point of total and complete desperation, some of the tracks become contenders for Music for my Funeral - a collection of tracks I have been preparing for... well... that one final farewell. This is not the first score for Max Richter. In 2009, he composed soundtracks for La Prima Linea (Cam Original) and Henry May Long (Mute). His 2008 score for Valse Avec Bachir (Delabel) also included a few tracks from The Blue Notebooks (130701). All of the above, along with Memoryhouse and Songs From Before are highly recommended. Be sure to also check out Headphone Commute's review of Richter's 24 Postcards In Full Colour (130701) and our previous Two and a Half Questions with Max Richter.

I have been a fan of Max Richter for a pretty long time now. To me his music is thought provoking and about as original as it gets. I can actually hear his growth within every release which leads me to my one second review of "Infra". To sum this up as simply as I can .... Crippling. As soon as the first track kicks in my mind starts to wonder. Don't think about it, just buy it.

I was happy to find it on Amazon because in my country (Slovenia) I couldn't get it.

ty

Max Richter (composer, piano/electronics) has created another musical gem with this album, INFRA. This one, a soundtrack commissioned by the Royal Ballet for the production of the same name originally choreographed by Wayne MacGregor at the Royal Opera in 2008. The music is gorgeous, beginning to end. Seamless, one track flowing into the next. The music Mr. Richter composes evokes states of being that embody spaciousness, solitude, and a rich, poignant, minimalism, musically. As well as atmospheres containing a cinematic ambiance, sweep and tone. In addition to Mr. Richter are Louisa Fuller (violin), Natalia Bonner (violin), Nick Barr (viola), Ian Burdge (cello), and Chris Worsey (cello). The music on this soundtrack is classical, but not solely. It also contains electronic whispers masterfully woven, and intricately imbued into the selections on the album. INFRA was recorded at Air studios in London in October, 2009. If you are a fan of Mr. Richter's The Blue Notebooks, 24 Postcards In Full Color, Songs From Before, and another soundtrack of his, Henry May Long - I think you'll want to add this to your Max Richter collection, too. Most highly recommended.

Okay so this album cannot compare to Blue Notebooks, Songs From Before, 24 Postcards, or Memoryhouse - BUT it is still a great Richter album in it's own ways. The static seems to eat the music alive at times...which is sad and yet comfortable. The piano pieces are incredible, as are all that Richter writes. All his other albums are 5 star albums for me, so this only gets 4. I wish it could have been a five, but perhaps his next proper solo release will be. This guy can do no wrong when it comes to writing beautiful music!

Herr Richter has produced some uncanny and lovely music by incorporating a highly credible and intelligent combination of signal processing and electronics within chamber ensemble settings. His early work, adding spoken-word monologues read in one case by actress Tilda Swinton and in another Robert Wyatt, displayed a less certain, almost circumscribed world beguiled and often subsumed by persistent found-sound intrusions and a phonographic melancholy. These earlier works relied mostly on a suspended sense of time created by atmospheric elements set into the timbre of the violins, violas and cellos. Instruments which in turn added seemingly fragmented phrases -- lines that inferred missing or incomplete parts -- invoking a sustained sense of absence and loss that remain unique to Richter's work.

Perhaps, with "Infra", the constraints of writing for ballet dictated more about the structure than I am qualified to judge. But then, set next to another recent work for dance -- Gavin Bryar's "Biped" -- "Infra" feels left a bit wanting. The music here is more reliant on melody than is typical for this composer and Richter's handling of melody proves not as strong as that of a Gavin Bryars, or a Johann Johannsson or a Hildur Gudnadottir, or an Olafur Arnalds. And at moments the melodic components become so predictable as to make the music seem nearly generic. Time and again "Infra" reaches a pinnacle of sorts in its pace, its voicing and immaculate production. Unfortunately this high degree of finish simultaneously undercuts the work, leaving this listener with a sensibility and feel that is mostly too familiar, too reassuring. Of course, compared with a vast number of releases, "Infra" excels -- don't refrain from buying the music because of one person's overly-specific opinion that within its particular niche "Infra" is at best a 3.5 release, and that mostly from points for its continuing pursuit of such a refined and still promising aesthetic.

2 1/2


Underwhelmingy stale, Infra proves Richter's once vibrant repetitious minimalism a lucky streak with the same tired compositional prototypes on top of massive filler.