Max Richter: ‘While The Flood Rages’

There is something deeply immersive about Max Richter’s new album ‘While the Flood Rages’. From the opening, seemingly incessant pulse of recorded ocean waves, we are lead into ‘Wave After Wave’ and onwards through this wonderful music.

While The Flood Rages derives from Richter’s collaboration with Wayne McGregor on  MaddAddam - a co-commission between the National Ballet Of Canada and the Royal Opera House inspired by Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy.

Rather than a direct soundtrack, ‘While The Flood Rages' functions as a standalone companion work. Richter says: "I took the material apart and created a trajectory that makes sense just through listening. It's a different way to reach the same destination."

Richter’s music is always transfixing and this collection - 15 tracks in three acts - centres around the title track, which embodies the composer’s style and introduces themes which recur periodically. Vastly, hugely cinematic and full of dynamics, While the Flood Rages somehow allows us moments of peace in which to simply ‘be’.

There is a reason that the Ivors Academy is presenting Max Richter will be presented with an Ivor Novello Award for Innovation 17 November: he is a truly innovative composer. The same day is National Album Day in the UK and Richter is an Album Champion. Certainly, his music is often best listened to as a whole, rather than dipping in and out.

As composer, arranger and orchestrator, Richter brings a sense of collective creativity where no instrument is simply filling musical space and where the use of electronics reminds us of the technology all around us - for good or ill. While the Flood Rages is an album you’ll want on repeat and on loud.

‘While The Flood Rages’ by Max Richter is available from 16 October