Max Richter’s ninth solo album – the first to be written and recorded at his serene new studio in rural Oxfordshire – is a fleeting self-portrait of a musician in constant motion. In A Landscape is a record about “reconciling polarities”, as Richter puts it, bringing together the electronic and the acoustic, the human and the natural world, the big questions of life and the quiet pleasures of living. The 19-track album began life in summer 2022 as a natural counterweight to the urgent political tenor of his previous projects. Shifting focus to Richter’s immediate surroundings, In A Landscape marks out a psychic space in which to meditate on the present while recognising a lifetime of artistic influence, from Bach and Purcell to the poetry of Keats, Wordsworth and Anne Carson. “It’s me having a look around, trying to examine where I'm at,” he suggests, “like a memoir of the present moment.” In A Landscape is his first solo album recorded at Studio Richter Mahr, the minimalist, eco-conscious creative retreat designed and operated by Richter and his wife, visual artist Yulia Mahr. “The whole building is like an instrument,” he says. “There's an element of exploring the capabilities of the building, how all the spaces sound, all the textures, and trying to discover the fingerprint it has.” The creative process was deliberately minimal, with Richter writing notation by hand and restricting his palette to just a few colours: string quintet, grand piano, Hammond organ and MiniMoog, plus tape delays, vocoders and reverbs. “I’m always looking for ways to get to the essence of things, to get to the simplest version of everything.” Included in this package: 2x 140g black recycled vinyl housed in a gatefold sleeve.
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