180-gram pressing mastered from original sources
Pressed at Optimal in Germany
Album download included, offer subject to expiration
Beautifully recorded and cinematic in scope, Songs From Before carries a pensive, emotionally resonant tone. Punctuated by Robert Wyatts distinctive, understated readings of Haruki Murakamis text, the music evokes forgotten memories or lost histories, a series of bittersweet articulations that seem suspended somewhere between a dreamy sense of awe and melancholia.
The title refers to the fact that, as well as this being a kind of specimen case of music written over a long period, the album carries other music inside it — with the sources ranging from music between 5 and 300 years old — either used as starting points for Max's own writing, or submerged deep within.
Musicians:
Louisa Fuller / Natalia Bonner, violins
John Metcalfe, viola
Ian Burdge / Chris Worsey, cellos
Robert Wyatt reader (Tracks 2, 4, 7, 9, 11)
Max Richter, piano and electronics
Track Listing:
Side 1
Song
Flowers for Yulia
Fragment
Harmonium
Ionosphere
Side 2
Autumn Music 1
Time Passing
Sunlight
Lullaby
Autumn Music 2
Verses
From the Rue Vilin
Bonus Track: Leo