Max Richter announces stripped back version of songs from SLEEP

For Richter, the piano is a sketch pad – the starting point for new creative ventures, enabling subconscious ideas to float up to the surface as he begins composing. As he notes, the instrument also plays a key role in SLEEP: “One of the two main themes is very slow-moving, pulsed piano music – the instrument is one of the main characters in the piece.” It was therefore a natural choice to go back to the keyboard and strip certain sections of the larger work down to their basic structures.

Equally natural was the notion of revisiting an existing work and exploring what else it might have to say, to him and to others. “I don’t really believe in closed works of art,” he explains. “I’m very interested in the music remaining alive, not frozen, and in what the listeners bring to the piece. When we see a sculpture, we don't always see it the same way we walk around it. We see different angles, different aspects. And in a way, this is maybe revealing different aspects of SLEEP itself.”

So pleased to share a new perspective on Dream 0 - which is the first single from my upcoming SLEEP: Piano Edition EP.

Available to stream here - https://t.co/LL4wvd3kCS pic.twitter.com/AWO9PZx6nv

— maxrichtermusic (@maxrichtermusic) February 2, 2024

In 2023, Richter revisited some of the SLEEP material from an electronic perspective for SLEEP: Tranquility Base. For this new EP, SLEEP: Piano Edition, he has focused on his own instrument and created three extended reimagined tracks for solo piano. Short edits of each track will also be issued as singles, including Dolby Atmos versions. The first, "Dream 0", is out now.

Following the EP release, Max Richter will present a special audio-visual meditation ‘90 Minutes of SLEEP’ at London’s BFI IMAX Waterloo. It will be the first-ever spatial presentation of music from his SLEEP project, with visuals custom-made for the UK’s largest cinema screen.