Max Richter - Infra

You might think you don’t know Max Richter or any of his work, but chances are you do. His music’s been used more than a fair bit in soundtracking TV shows and such, and if you’ve seen ‘Waltz With Bashir’ (if you haven’t you don’t know what you’re missing), he scored the film. He’s released four studio albums up to now. This one, ‘Infra’, is his fifth on FatCat Records’ new classical imprint 130701 - and no, we don’t know if there’s any particular meaning behind the name, though it is certainly intriguing.

‘Infra’ was created as the score to a Royal Ballet production, so this new album isn’t a ‘studio album’ in the strictest sense of the term. Richter has expanded on this score to create a full-length album that serves as one complete and flowing work. The record is split into two separate pieces: ‘Infra’ itself, and ‘Journey’. These are then subdivided into movements. ‘Infra”s sections are much more melodically-driven, whereas ‘Journey”s give the nod to the more ambient moments of his work. Everything is brought together by the gentle sound of static, which runs throughout the album and serves as a unifying device. Cohesion of this sort is something we love to see in an album, so this was what made us immediately sit up and pay attention.

However (and here’s where things start to get confusing), there are moments of overlap, particularly on ‘Journey”s fourth movement, which is a development of a theme introduced in ‘Infra”s fourth movement. So it’s not strictly two separate pieces, per se. Regardless of this, ‘Infra’ is a wonderful piece of work. From the gentle strains of the title track’s first movement; to the energetic yet pensive piano motif that holds its third together; to ‘Journey”s fifth movement, a minute of ambience that leads perfectly into the centrepiece of the record, the fifth movement of ‘Infra’ (around three minutes in, a swooping countermelody enters that is both euphoric and oddly heartwrenching; the climax point of the album); to ‘Infra”s devastating minor-key finale.

Then there are the nuances that make this record what it is. The contrast in moods between movements; the feeling that everything has been meticulously worked on and perfected; and of course, that cohesion. ‘Infra’ is brilliant. As background music, as something to lose oneself in, or as something to be studied and marvelled at, it excels; beautiful, powerful and stirring in equal measure.