ALBUM REVIEWS

Max Richter INFRA 130701 / FATCAT RECORDS 19.7.10 @www.vanguard-online.co.uk I spent half an hour trying to avoid using the words dream-like and filmic before giving up and nailing them up-front here. Infra is a ballet score commissioned by the Royal Ballet, originally under half an hour long; here extended to forty minutes of journeying. There are borrowings from Schubert’s atmospheric Winterreise in the piece and that’s appropriate, as the sense created in listening without the ballet dancers and original visuals is one of staring out of the window of a train with a sense of going somewhere without ever quite arriving. It opens with light echoey feedback and intercepted radio snippets before floating into achingly slow string textures. Piano comes and goes and I have the sensation of drifting. Gently sawing strings work whilst a lone violin picks out a melody high above. Textures change and flow, one into another, until the score ends without resolution or climax; fading quietly as it carries on without us. Ross McGibbon www.maxrichter.com Email Links & Comments to the editor Check the latest album releases