“It’s like SLEEP distilled.” That’s how Max Richter describes Sleep Circle, his new album marking the tenth anniversary of his landmark project SLEEP. Released on 5 September 2025 as a 2CD digipack, Sleep Circle is a hallucinatory 90-minute trip into the hypnagogic state – the liminal space between wakefulness and sleep in which dreams begin to take shape. The process of choosing Sleep Circle’s 24 tracks was informed by the insights Richter gained from live performances of an abridged version of his monumental opus. With its more intimate and focused approach to SLEEP, the new album highlights compositions such as “Dream 11 / Moth-Like Stars” and “Non-Eternal” in a structural arc that mirrors the natural 90-minute REM cycle. Recorded at Studio Richter Mahr in Oxfordshire, Sleep Circle showcases Max Richter’s unique ability to translate profound human experience into music, offering listeners a space to slow down and reconnect with their inner selves.
