Sleep (by Max Richter) - part 1

June 2nd, 2023

This is a masterpiece that paradoxically cannot be enjoyed as a whole. My judgment is based on only fragments I listened to over the last few days and no matter the partiality of the experience my high verdict comes easy. This album cannot be enjoyed as a whole by the design of its creator — it lasts for eight and a half hours and as it mimics the sleep pattern so — if we stay awake listening to it in its entirety that would defeat the purpose of its creation, and if we fall asleep listening to it as intended by the artist then our judgment will not cover the whole scope of this work of art.

And this is the ART of the highest level achievable for human creativity and talent as I see it or rather hear it — and experience it. This album captivates and tranquilizes at the same time. It transforms a slow rhythm of single-spaced sounds into the understanding of the wholeness of one’s body when the said body (and mind for that matter) are at rest. There are a few crescendos that resemble sleepy stretches and yawns within the relaxed body that fade back into gentle surrender into a deep slumber. Music (is music a proper word to describe it? What I hear in this album I hear singular sounds woven in a tapestry of feeling and that might be more than just music) is minimalistic but not ambient — it is not just there on the periphery of consciousness but becomes intertwined with the experience of sleep. And the experience is ethereal — on one hand, familiar for everyone as one-third of our lives we experience every night (or day), on the other — it brings unfolding of a mirror view of sleep as experienced from the side. Like feeling ourselves falling asleep and seeing it as well as it happens in real time.