Max Richter - 24 Postcards in Full Color
A collection of (mostly) short pieces (the composer jokingly refers to them as 'ringtones'). There are solo piano compositions, compositions for strings, ambient pieces, even the odd guitar thrown in. I first became aware of Richter as the producer of Vashti Bunyan's beautiful 2005 release Lookaftering. Then backtracked to check out Piano Circus who covered the noo-classical canon of work by Arvo Part, Steve Reich, and the like. Postcards is in the same vein. If you enjoy the works of the those guys, or Philip Glass e.g.(although M.R. isn’t sooo repetitive), Richter should please you. The variety of instrumentations, textures and tempi makes for an enjoyable listen. There's something melancholy and autumnal about this record that somehow suits the coming season. Some of these short works give you something to chew on, others are basically thinking man's easy listening, but that's not such a bad thing at all. A perfect record with which to close a busy day.
* EXCAVATIONS = I've written forever. Well before Reverberations entered the blogosphere. With EXCAVATIONS, we'll occasionally feature some of my work from the vaults. Some pieces will be dashed off reviews for use at Kief's Downtown Music, others will have been from periodicals like the Kansas City Star, The Tornado, The Kansas City Free Press, or others. The intent? It's simple, to give Reverberations readers a look at some older writings, and to plug some records that still sound fine to these ears.
