Max Richter
The Blue Notebooks

"Metropolitan Nocturnes for Lonely Hearts" 

Second work by pianist composer Max Richter.

Minimal piano notes like raindrops on soft string orchestrations, electronic punctuation, ambient surges.

A suggestive play of shadows, masterfully orchestrated by the author who uses notes as soft colors to paint melancholic nocturnal landscapes.

"The Blue Octavo Notebooks," a female voice recites over piano notes that fly on the beat of a typewriter and a distant running train, guiding us into a suspended, dreamlike world, which reveals its full splendor in "On The Nature Of Daylight", a lunar sonata illuminated by a swaying string section .

Music that whispers, footsteps on soft snow.

A succession of poignant progressions for piano and strings, brushstrokes of electronics, sweet melodies for solo piano, an organ recorded in a small church. A small sound universe that slowly expands.

Arvo Part, Harold Budd, Sylvain Chauveau, Gavin Bryars, Glass, and Eno are among the many stars that light up the night sky of "The Blue Notebooks",  but there are also traces of gloomy neo-classicism dear to the 4AD aesthetic, traces that lead into the world of the gentler Sigur Ros and similar.

Savor slowly, in solitude.

Rating: 8.5