Max Richter - 24 Postcards In Full Colour

by Jon Severs

Britain's answer to Sigur Ros?

"Though the tracks are short, each has its own unique personality. Richter’s background in film, including scoring the Emma Thompson's odd film Stranger Than Fiction, is clear from the start."

If The Rolling Stones are The National Gallery (traditional, recognisable, unequivocally ‘cultural’), Max Richter is the Tate Modern (abstract, unconventional, challenging). And in this vain, some may suggest Richter, a man currently  working on a project with Turner prize nominee Darren Almond, is more about the words that describe the music than the music itself. This would be unfair. Richter is an accomplished musician, a producer for the likes of Vashti Bunyan and a well-regarded writer of film music.

That said, the explanation behind '24 Postcards In Full Colour' will test the patience of those with little time for "new art". You see, this album is pitched as a collection of 24 classical ringtones. Seriously. But we are not talking Crazy Frog here, according to Richter, it is more a redefinition of what a ringtone has to be: “Who says ringtones have to be bad?” he asks. "It’s just a medium.”

To be honest, this sort of talk distracts from what is an incredibly interesting album. Though the tracks are short, each has its own unique personality. Richter’s background in film, including scoring the Emma Thompson oddity Stranger Than Fiction, is clear from the start. Opener 'The Road Is A Grey Tape’ suggests monotony, but second track 'H In New England’ gives you a more accurate flavour of the album as a whole; slow-motion orchestral strands of music that come together to create snap shots of scenes you have the freedom to create for yourself. It is film music without the pictures. And that is emancipation for the listener that is strangely euphoric.

Fans of Eels will see similarities in tracks like 'From 553 W Elm Street. Logan Illinois (Snow)' to E’s back catalogue of instrumental meanderings and on ‘Cathodes’, there is something distinctly Radiohead about the confusion of electronic and traditional instrumentation, echoed again on ‘Kierling/Doubt’.

But comparisons are limiting where Richter’s whole concept here is freedom of expression in whatever form feels right. So it is better to lay bare the facts as they stand. This is a intricate and beautiful album, one that does not need the art explanation but stands up instead as a challenge to ‘popular’ music. Sigur Ros’s break into the mainstream will help Richter find an audience, but the way in which he can create pictures, postcards if you like, that bring with them whole stories without a word being uttered, should see him overtake Sigur Ros and carve a niche that is all, and deservedly, his own.

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