24 Poscards in Full Colour

Last night I picked up a copy of 24 Postcards in Full Colour off of iTunes. It is Max Richter’s latest album. I recently discovered him after hearing On The Nature of Daylight from The Blue Notebooks. He is a classical composer that uses many modern techniques. He blurs the line between what is classical and what is electronic music.

The album is very much a Max Richter album. It has this bittersweet feel tinged with hope, longing, and a quietness about it. So far my favorite track is the second one - “H In New England” with In Louisville At 7 and Cathodes also really good. Cathodes is a bit of controlled chaos, it sounds like an orchestra just going a little nuts. There seems to be more piano used on this album than on the Blue Notebooks, to good effect. In this one he intermixes classical and electronic pieces. In some ways it reminds me of the Ghosts albums from NiN but with more structure. The juxtaposition of the piano and the electronic is in places somewhat jarring. But the pieces which mix both together are interesting and powerful.

In comparison to The Blue Notebooks this one has more, shorter tracks. There is also no spoken word interludes and he seems to use piano and other instruments a bit more. The jury is still out for me on which I prefer as they are in essence very different albums. They do each inspire similar feelings though. Some sadness, some hope, longing, quietness. For some reason his music makes me think of late nights, early mornings, and days that start out grey but end up with blue skies.

If I were to give it a star rating so far it is a five star album for me. Yes, it is that good I think. I am not sure if iTunes just got an early release but the release date is set for August 25th according to the official site. I guess I got lucky.

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