For his latest album, Songs From Before, English composer works with the same basic formula that served him so well on 2004’s The Blue Notebooks.  That is, combining spoken word pieces with elegiac string arrangements, field recordings, and subtle electronics.  But whereas The Blue Notebooks‘s pieces were built around Tilda Swinton’s readings of Franz Kafka, Songs From Before uses Robert Wyatt’s readings of various Haruki Murakami texts as embellishment.

Which, on the whole, works remarkably well.  Richter’s string arrangements and subtle programming and electronics creates a mood that lethargic, dreamlike, melancholy mood that is perfectly suited to the themes of loss, nostalgia, and alienation that permeate Murakami’s work.

Listening to tracks such as “Song” and “Harmonium”, it’s difficult to not imagine yourself as Toru Okada, the protagonist of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (arguably Murakami’s most famous novel), as he wanders through menacing, forlorn dreamworlds.  “Sunlight” is one of the album’s most beautiful tracks, with its keening, swaying violin melodies that do indeed seem bathed in light—albeit the light that emanates from distant memories of childhood, memories that, through the passing of years, have become stained with loss and regret.

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4AD has released two of the heaviest albums of the year. The first was Scott Walker’s dark and harrowing The Drift, which has thoroughly divided folks it seems.  Indeed, I’ve barely listened to it since I wrote my review, and yet everything else I’ve heard this year exists within its impenetrable shadow.

And now comes along IBM 1401, A User’s Manual, the latest from acclaimed Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannson, and follow-up to his wonderful 2004 album, Virthulegu forsetar.  Conceived as a tribute of sorts to one of the first computer to arrive on Iceland’s shores—which was worked on by Jóhannson’s father, no less—the five long tracks that make up this disc are elegaic and gorgeous.

Sure, it might be for an obsolete computer, but Jóhannson’s swelling strings (courtesy of the Prague Philharmonic) and light electronic elements make us feel the loss of an entire age, as if an entire way of life is passing away right in front of our eyes.  There are moments where the compositions are almost in danger of becoming too melodramatic and melancholy for their own good, but some new orchestral twist almost always comes along, bearing a fresh new batch of heartache.

At one point, Jóhannson weaves in recordings that his father made on the old 1401 made over three decades ago.  The electronic melodies—created by recording the computer’s electromagnetic fields through a nearby radio receiver—are crude and simple, and yet they’re made almost radiant by Jóhannson’s strings.  Elsewhere, a recording of an instruction tape for the 1401’s maintenance plays out almost like a religious ceremony, replete with solemn bells.

In the album’s final track, a robotic voice sighs “The sun’s gone dim and the sky’s turned black”, as if the computer is lamenting its own passing; meanwhile, the strings soar like never before, as if Jóhannson thoroughly intends to send the IBM 1401 to mainframe heaven all by himself.

Although I liked Jóhann Jóhannsson’s previous disc, Englabörn, a fair amount, I didn’t get into it quite as much as others I knew.  Perhaps it was because its mixture of lush string arrangements and modern electronics felt a little too—and I use this term only because I can’t think of anything better—gimmicky.  No such complaints, however, with Virthulegu forsetar, the man’s latest work.

For this composition, Jóhannsson largely eschews the electronics and string arrangements, instead using focusing his music around trumpets, tubas, and other brass instruments.  While the piece is ostensibly for brass, organ, piano, electronics, percussion, and piano, it is the brass instrumentation that remains the piece’s foundational element, their golden swells and tones lending a majestic, and melancholy, tone to the entire piece.

Listening to the four untitled movements that make up Virthulegu forsetar, I’m greatly reminded of Arvo Pärt’s stately minimalism.  Although Jóhannsson’s music isn’t quite as sparse as, say, Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel, there is still the same sense that each and every note you hear has been placed with precision, and more importantly, each stretch of silence is has been created with precision as well.

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Opening up the Hebrew-inscribed cover of the latest offering from post-rock giants Godspeed You Black Emperor (a name that should strike terror into the hearts of the faithless everywhere), the first thing one sees is a passage from the book of Jeremiah.  It actually seems quite appropriate.  If anything were to accompany the apocalyptic words of the “weeping prophet”, it’d be Godspeed.

Now, when I say “apocalyptic”, I’m not referring to bombings and Y2K mumbo-jumbo.  Rather, I’m referring to “Old Testament, fear of the Lord, burning the priests of Baal” apocalyptic.  Only with a band like Godspeed could you have liner notes that read “I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and before His fierce anger” and not sound like a paranoid street preacher or a millenial cult.

Godspeed’s previous release, F#A# Infinity Symbol was a breathtaking journey across a twisted, broken landscape—an incredibly cinematic piece that lived up to all of the critical hype that had surrounded it.  Now this juggernaut of a group has returned to the land of their birth with this 2 song EP.  Recorded between tours, this record lacks much of the studio polish and trickery that filtered throughout the album.  What we’re left with is a much rawer and more honest sound that still manages to be more refined and emotional than nearly anything I’ve heard in the past 6 months.

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On paper, the concept for The Blue Notebooks sounds pretentious, to say the least—a collection of orchestral and electronic numbers that serves as background music for readings of Franz Kafka and Czeslaw Milosz by actress Tilda Swindon.  However, that description, as accurate as it might be, doesn’t come close to describing the arresting and singular beauty present throughout this disc.

For starters, Swindon’s readings only comprise a fraction of the disc’s total length, so if you’re looking for a “Books On Tape” experience, you’ll need to look elsewhere.  Swindon’s readings are hushed, backed by the sounds of the typewriter and the faint strains of Richter’s piano playing in the background.  There’s something surreal about these short pieces, as if you’ve somehow managed to stumble across the author at work and are listening in on some sort of inner monologue whilst they peck away at the keys.

The texts themselves are but short fragments that deal with memory, the ghosts that haunt people’s lives and the places they’ve lived, and the impermanence of things (which is accentuated by the album’s shadowy artwork).  This is perfectly suited for the music that Max Richter composes.  Although much of the album’s attention may be due to Swindon’s involvement, it is truly Richter’s haunting compositions that are the heart and soul, and the true attraction, of this disc.

“On The Nature Of Daylight” follows a Gorecki-esque path, as solemn, mournful strings slowly build up to a keening climax and “Horizon Variations” sees Richter layering his sparse, shimmering piano notes over dream-like, Boards Of Canada-esque electronics.  “Shadow Journal” opens with a tense violin eking out notes over vaguely unsettling synths, and slowly picks up the pace as new synth lines emerge against distant electronic pulses.

Blending strings and piano with electronic textures and programming is, of course, nothing new.  However, that does not at all diminish how well Richter does it.  And he blends these elements in such a way that they accentuate rather that detract from one another.

Tone-wise, there’s a deep sense of brooding and anxiety that flows through this album.  For instance, the slow, inexorable, and devastating culmination of “The Trees” and “Written On The Sky”‘s touching coda.  It’s almost as if they themselves ruminate on the moody fragments read by Swindon, as if the music itself is fully resigned to inevitable loss and impermanence.

It’s almost cliched to describe this sort of music as “cinematic”, but it’s also incredibly truthful.  A quick perusal of the IMDb reveals that Richter has done no soundtrack work, which is a shame.  Every single one of these songs feels lifted from the soundtrack to some long forgotten classic—yet another reason for their nostalgic atmosphere.  At times, Richter’s work is reminiscent of Yann Tiersen’s—“Vladmir’s Blues” has an almost Amelie-esque feel to it, albeit much more melancholy and downbeat.  And the other comparisons that leap readily to mind—Craig Armstrong, Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson—are just as cinematic (and downbeat) as well.

One almost feels slightly sacrilegious if one doesn’t give their full, undivided attention to the album as its playing.  There’s this sense that if you don’t do that, that if you simply let it sink into the background, you’re missing out on something timeless and fragile, something that is lost once the album—which runs a scanty 46 minutes—has finished playing.

Thankfully, one can always press “Play” and try to recapture it again.  And I suspect that many shall.

Haibane Renmei is a series that completely took me by surprise, and which I’ve fallen completely in love with.  I hope to write a full-length review sometime in the near future, but suffice to say, Yoshitoshi ABe’s gently poignant, reflective fantasy series is a true delight, and should really be seen by anyone seeking an anime series with spiritual depth and substance.  Appropriately, Kô Ôtani’s soundtrack is delightfully restrained, consisting primarily of haunting piano ballads and gorgeous string arrangements.

Some songs, such as the lovely opening theme “Free Bird”, have a slightly Celtic air to them, whereas others have a more baroque feel to them—which is note-perfect considering the series’ pastoral, European village setting.  Meanwhile, other tracks, such as “Blight” and especially “Fading” have a more pensive and even eerie feel to them.  Which is also appropriate given that the series’ darker, more mysterious undertones eventually surface and take hold during its final act, setting up a very rewarding conclusion.

The soundtrack deviates from its established sound twice.  Once for the lowkey jazz ballad “Love Will Light The Way” (which isn’t as cloying as its title might imply) and once for the slightly J-pop-ish “Blue Flow”, which plays over the series’ ending credits.  However, the music remains subtle and understated even then, doing a fine job of drawing the listener into its unique little world—just like the series itself.

The Dirty Three feature one of the most freeing aspects of 90s indie rock, the option of NOT singing. Without a obvious choice of who’s most talented singer, many bands add vocals by seeming default, and its often to their detriment. D3 never make you wish someone would open their mouth.

Their wordless mini-tragedies, located between swampy, yet cliche-less blues, minimalist jazz, and scaled down chamber music, bring on a dichotomy of empathy and fear of memory (cheer up, I’ll explain that in a sec.). When Warren Ellis (no, not the writer for Vertigo’s “Transmetropolitan”) sends his violin bow ceilingward, there’s always the possibility he can bring visions of ghosts done wrong. When the bow comes back down, you wonder if he isn’t mining some motherlode of universal genetic sadness.

What that all means is its great music to listen to when you’re mourning, or just in a good 3 beer sulk. (Assuming you’re of the type that drinks responsibly and gets more thoughtful with drink, rather than just mean) It also means that sometimes what the D3 can make you think of is a bit too close to home.

The sheer tangibility of these sounds is a pure wonder. Mick Turner’s guitar is almost like some aural daguerreotype (think images of the Civil War), or if it was cloth, pillow tacking. Jim White’s drumming is indeed oceanic, rolling softly and crashing like a lazy tide. The interplay of this group is a marvel, they fall in and out of sync with each other, and make you wish they had tape rolling every time they practice. The songs, at least to me, suggest new possibilities and connections every time they play them.

Written by Pearson Greer.

Gavin Bryars is not a rock star. He is a modern classical composer, well-known for his albums based upon unusual themes. For example, he released as album based upon the legend of the Titanic’s string ensemble that played as the ship was sinking, an album that came out several years before the movie came out. This particular album is entirely based upon a recording of an English tramp singing this simple chorus: “Jesus’ blood never failed me yet/Never failed me yet/Jesus’ blood never failed me yet/There’s one thing I know/For He loves me so…”

This chorus is looped and played over and over again for the entire 74 minutes of the album. However, Bryars creates a beautiful string arrangement that develops slowly underneath the recording, a string arrangement that is sparse, yet serene and nostalgic. As the album progresses, the strings grow more powerful and in tune with the tramp singing, as more instruments join in. In the end, the tramp is joined in his singing by Tom Waits. Some people will probably be put off by Waits’ voice. At times, he sounds like a drunken sailor. However, his voice holds a strength and grit that the tramp’s warbly and thin voice lacks.

It might sound boring, listening to the tramp’s voice over and over again like that, even with the string arrangements. However, I have listened to this album many times and I still do not find it boring or repetitive. I find it to be quite peaceful and relaxing; I often listen to it when I go to sleep. Maybe it’s the off-kilter way the tramp sings the chorus, or the very words he’s singing. Bryars does an excellent job with this album, writing pieces that strengthen and bolster the tramp’s voice without overpowering it. His arrangements are subtle, restrained, and dignified, letting the spotlight shine on the tramp. More importantly, this album does not trivialize what the tramp is singing. The words he is singing are never presented in a mocking or derisive way. They are presented as is, and the listener can derive from them what they want. However, Bryars does include an example of the power contained within the tramp’s singing. In the liner notes, he says:

“When I copied the loop… I left the door of the recording studio open… while I went downstairs to get a cup of coffee. When I came back I found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual, and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping. I was puzzled until I realized that the tape was still playing and they had been overcome by the old man’s unaccompanied singing.”

We could argue why people find this recording of a tramp singing this chorus so powerful. However, it most likely has to do with the fact that this man, utterly destitute by the world’s standards, still has the faith in his Lord and Saviour to sing these words.

It brought tears to my eyes while writing this review.

This review originally appeared on the Campus Impact homepage.