Max Richter - The Blue Notebooks

This album is a perfect example of music that sounds oddly familiar yet intriguing at the same time. Throughout the album, a woman reads various passages from Kafka's "The Blue Octavo Notebooks." While it is tempting to classify this album as a concept album because of this narrative novelty, Richter is most concerned with getting to the climactic workings of successful Steve Reich and Philip Glass classical pieces. This is no negativism; in fact, Richter is more interested in their dramatic workings, which he employs perfectly with his personal touch of electronics (perhaps carried over from his previous production work with Roni Size or Future Sound of London), than the trademark destruction of composition of Reich and Glass. Because of this conservative approach, "The Blue Notebooks" has something for all music fans: electronic, classical, or rock-oriented music like Sigur Ros. Highly recommended.