Max Richter                   
Sleep Circle              
(DG)                                
★★★★★

AMBIENT music is the term Brian Eno conceived of in 1978 to describe a music of slow, calm, reflective, spiritual mood. French composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy were ahead of the curve, early in the 20th century, as they strove to capture the impression of things.

In that tradition, British composer Max Richter ranks very high in what might be termed New Modern Impressionism. His Sleep album from 2012 prove to be hugely popular, with Richter giving overnight concerts, inviting audiences to sleep during the performance.

Sleep Circle finds Richter re-examining and reworking some of the ideas from Sleep. The band line-up includes gifted violin work from Louisa Fuller and Natalie Bonner, violist Nick Barr, cello from Max Ruisi and Zara Huson-Kozdoj with Grace Davidson providing haunting soprano vocal duties, Richter on piano and synth. A bold recording provides for a large sounding platform, the sum proving to be bigger than its parts.        

Julius Asal
Siena Tapes 
(DG)
★★★★★                         

GERMAN pianist and Composer Julius Asal’s second album for DG is a celebration of the French composer Maurice Ravel’s 150th Birthday. Four works from Ravel feature along with four from Asal and one from producer and composer Christian Badzura. All for solo piano, recorded at Rick Rubin’s chapel on his Siena estate.

The album opens up with a 15-second sonic artwork based on a cassette tape inserted into a tape machine followed by a simple frozen synth texture. Next, Asal’s Cascade, a bold, calm piece followed by Ravel’s Prelude in A Minor. Asal gives off a radiant energy, full of light and shade.

Another highlight is Badzura’s four-minute piece Petites Vagues. A strong melodic piano refrain holds the focus, surrounded by subtle chords that are modern and cinematic. The album closes with Ravel’s A La Maniere de Borodine: reflective, optimistic and emotive. The recording throughout captures a spirited performance in a unique sonic space.

Jean-Michel Jarre  
Live in Bratislava                     
(Sony Music)                  
★★★★★

EARLY in the 1970s French composer Jean-Michel Jarre created ground-breaking sonic structures, a forerunner in what would later become known as electronic dance music. His latest album is a live album from a concert performed in May 2024 in Bratislava, Slovakia as part of the Starmus Festival. The festival was founded by astrophysicist Garik Israelian and Sir Brian May under the auspices of the late Stephen Hawking and is intended to inspire the next generation of explorers and modern thinkers.

Performed at one of Bratislava’s main bridges, the scale of the concert production was vast, and the ambition of the music likewise. It opens up with a huge synth brass fanfare chord work, then blends into a selection of epic tunes from his 1976 classic album Oxygene. The 1979 follow-up Equinox is also featured. Brian May contributes throughout, providing epic guitar textures including on an ambitious interpretation of Antonin Dvorak’s New World Symphony.