REVIEW! MAX RITCHER - FROM SLEEP (2015)

"Sleeping is one of the most important things we do"

It seems year after year Max Richter, a German born English composer, gets better and better. With a major backing from film directors as well as HBO knocking on his door, for more songs to be added to their star filled TV dramas, this man can do no wrong. (Seek The Leftover's TV Show, series 2 out now)

After finishing various works for the silver screen and the ones that live in our front rooms remaining constantly vibrant. Richter took it upon himself to crafted one piece of music heavily disguised as lullaby to help explore the ideology of what Sleep is and what happens to us as we enter inactivity.
Richter prior to writing this length of music, conferred with famous neuroscientist David Eagleman to learn more about how our brains work at night. Richter wanted to attempt to find out the answer of what spaces occur within our minds when it is on "holiday".  Thus...

We got the masterpiece: SLEEP!


However, this album under review: 'From Sleep' can be seen as the "greatest hits" of this eight hour long epic. Heavily consisting of pianos, strings and choral structures, this album is perfect in case you just want dip your toe in the waters of this drowsy delight. Basically, a heightened power nap to energize your ears. The album is compressed onto one CD or on two vinyls in a deluxe package; its a beautiful accompaniment to your thoughts and dreams in the midnight hours.  

On this record, set over two visually stunning vinyls which in themselves create their own moon like gravitational pull when spinning, Richter manages to craft a beautiful patchwork of pianos, variety of strings and choral pieces throughout to distill a quilt of heavenly slumber. The music, river like in it's passage, drifts along with a soft ambiance. Personally, this lullaby for the dormant individual never fails to lack any tedious qualities track by track or does any section repeat its previous self; Richter successfully conveys a strong sense of emotion and a constant beating melody which is usually absent in the hearts of minimal music.

Track by track we get a feel of Richter's thoughts and feelings on what sleep is to him. Second by second will hear that with each stroke of a string and each hum of the choral piece being played we see the transition of the subject mater into that of an art. The vibrations add more and more splatters to the final canvas of art hanging in our minds.

Max Richter- German born English composer

Richter himself is a key figure head in the modern movement of post-minimalism in the early 2000's. A style of music and art which further develops and expands upon the original idea of minimalism a few decades before. As he successful re-composed Vivaldi's classic baroque standard, 'The Four Seasons' with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, to critical acclaim, he became a main figure in the modern classical circuits. (For me personally, this is where I first heard his work)
Although, he himself had already released a stream of concept albums including the brilliant 'Blue Notebooks' which, featured Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton herself narrating like a omnipresent voice. These records largely stayed in a mix of elective social circles where they were chosen as their favorite albums of that year corresponding to its release.

Not long before the release of this record to the public, the composer was approached by the BBC to preform this epic it all its heavenly glory on the 27th of September that year,2015. With Richter agreeing to be part of it's Radio 3 "Science and Music" weekend, the whole 8 hour piece was preformed live from the midnight til 8:00 am to match the sleeping patterns of a normal human as the climax to the festival. With this, Ritcher manages to break multiple records all at the same time including: the longest broadcast for a single piece of music in the BBC since its inception in 1936.

Max expressing his feelings about the record/ Inner Sleeve

Side A of the Vinyl/ Grey "Moon" Colour

Rating: 4/5


-THURSTON

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P.S. Yes 'The Blue Notebooks' is where I get my name sake from! Shhhhhhh.....

REVIEW! PAVEL BUCHLER IDLE THOUGHTS (2013)

BOOK REVIEW: PAVEL BUCHLER- IDLE THOUGHTS

The Book in its GLORY

"All I remember is the handwriting going on for pages and pages... in its way it was perfect."

A closing remark by the artist Pavel Buchler on the reasoning behind why he has chosen to replicate the fading memories of his father, within his art work. The art work can be seen as a very heart felt love letter to his deceased father, as well as the influence he has bestowed within Buchler now as he is an adult. Whether it can be seen as open letter to his father or a work based upon the discovery of his failed novel in his youth, Butchler has used this as a catalyst to help him create multiple works of art based around the idea of human ideas as well as the way we write to express these interests of ours.

Pavel Bulcher in discussion of his work

  Pavel Buchler was born behind the "Iron Curtain" in Prague in 1952, around the time of the infamous 'Slansky Trail', where he would live and worked until the early 1980's. As a struggling artist he drew inspiration from a variety of sources: including his heritage, but mostly from the society and the world around him at time, especially living and breathing under a very strict Communist rule (strongly shown in his other works). Learning from this he created multiple works of art and sculptures to both stress and parody his life under this all seeing eye. However, he has also turned his hand into teaching and lectures about approaches to art on the whole as well as his own work. Currently he is a professor at Manchester University on the MA Fine Art course.
Still to this day he is a strong a prominent figure on the intentional art scene in more ways than one.  

Moving on to the exhibition put on by the recently re-built and updated Withworth Gallery in the student heart of the city of Manchester, I can not say I ever entered the gallery prior to it being updated but pictures have help me to illustrate the changes that have taken place over its closure. Now the gallery has a wide variety of different form of art work from sculptures to drawings, film and other art based works from multiple foreign and home grown talent.

Idle Thoughts (Diary 2010-2011)

As shown above, you can see the level of detail Buchler adds to these pieces; where each individual scrape and flick of the pen is perfectly added to cover up any remaining white paper cushioned below. The main interest in us human's is what lies behind all that blue blur. What was written moments before? Its a bizarre take on what the human mind can develop and structure but, also how in time all of our ideas grow from seeds and fruit the understanding of who or what we would like to achieve. This collection of art is no different; with the thought of time taking president which is duplicated with the periods of expanse it took to complete the collection. From the inception of his discovery to the formation of the works all of this took time, like his father's novel did.

In others forms of works in the series, entitled 'a year with a dead Biro' we see Buchler create invisible works of prose left as a ghostly outline on the page. This includes a diary of notes taken from the same year which has his thoughts and feelings embossed with the fibers of the paper itself. An all white swan song of his inner mind workings, which is too faint for us to see and feel. Yet, symbolically powerful for us viewers to feel a sense of lost and hope all juxtaposed in one. What was written?

Few of the Pieces on show 

Overall, a excellent messy insight into the world of failed human notions. Prior on the surface it may seem like an explosion at a pen factory; it deals more with the connection and love with for his father as he reminisces about his childhood and his amazement that his father could have it in him to create a novel in general.  



THURSTON

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