Max Richter – (From) Sleep

“Somehow, in Europe, over the last century, as complexity and inaccessibility became equated with intelligence and the avant-garde, we lost something along the way. Modernism gave us so many stunning works, but we also lost our lullabies.”

Long-form compositions are a challenge to a composer, because he (she) has to deal with the audience’s relatively short attention span: not many people will be able to focus and keep their concentration for 4 hours or even more. For this reason, it is no surprise that long-form experiments are often found in the realm of ambient music. Ánd that they are often dealing with ‘sleep’ – which instantly solves the attention span problem too.

Robert Rich – Perpetual (A Somnium Continuum)

Robert RichSomnium” – released in 2001 – was (and still is) one of the landmark monuments of ambient music. Based on his experience playing sleep concerts since 1982, this 7 hour work was especially composed to be your companion during the night, following the natural flow of sleep cycles.
The original Somnium DVD (that was the only format then that could hold such an amount of music) has long sold out now.
But the good news is: there is a successor to this project now: Perpetual(and its physical release also contains the original “Somnium” recordings)!