MAX RICHTER INTRODUCES SLEEP: TRANQUILITY BASE, OUT TODAY
Features Remixes from Kelly Lee Owens and Alva Noto
SLEEP: Tranquility Base will be included in Max Richter’s SLEEP App, the first new music drawn from outside the SLEEP project
“Revisiting the material now is a nice way to discover what it means to me, in this moment, in 2023.” - Max Richter
24 FEBRUARY 2023 (TORONTO, ON) – Max Richter presents SLEEP: Tranquility Base, a thirty-minute EP of new SLEEP music, released today on Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Music Canada ahead of World Sleep Day on 17 March. Remixes will come from electronic musician Kelly Lee Owens and German sound artist Alva Noto.
Richter returns to his celebrated eight-hour magnum opus SLEEP with this new EP which offers a glimpse into the original material from an electronic perspective. “Tranquility Base” is the site on the Moon where, in July 1969, humans landed and walked on a celestial body other than Earth for the first time. With this in mind, the EP functions as a vessel that disconnects and travels through the body of work, allowing art to provide something which resembles peace within ourselves.
Richter’s SLEEP app to date has had over 350K downloads and today the FOCUS section of the app has been updated. The update includes added music from SLEEP: Tranquility Base and music from across Richter’s repertoire. This is the first time material drawn from outside the SLEEP project has been included.
“SLEEP is a kind of counter argument to what’s going on in the world. Yulia and I have talked about it as protest music. It’s a sort of alternative proposition to how things could be or how things are… towards the world we’re living in and helps to shine a light on the things we can do better.
The original thing which made us want to make this piece was a sense of being oversaturated – with data, with information – overstimulated… All of that is just worse now, there’s more of the same – much more of the same – and that makes the piece continually relevant.” – Max Richter
Full Tracklist:
- Tranquility I
- Tranquility II
- Tranquility III
- Tranquility IV
- Tranquility V
- Tranquility VI
- Tranquility VII
- Tranquility VIII
- Tranquility IX
- Tranquility X
- Tranquility XI
- Tranquility XII
- Tranquility XIII
- Tranquility XIV
- Tranquility XV
- Tranquility XVI
Max Richter is renowned for his ability to translate profound human emotions into music. With his catalogue now surpassing 3 billion streams, he continues to set the standard for what is possible for composers in the 21st century. The original SLEEP record is the most streamed classical record of all time with The New Yorker stating that the music provides “a wish that the human body might be transformed into sound”, WSJ calling the record “haunting” and Crack saying that it’s “like fragments of half-remembered dreams”.
The SLEEP app is the product of a close collaboration between Max Richter, Deutsche Grammophon and Universal Music Germany’s Marketing Labs. The app was developed entirely in-house in Marketing Labs’ Consumer Development department.
Marketing Labs is Universal Music Germany’s high-tech innovation and marketing department. It collaborates with labels, and services artists with products and campaigns with global scale and reach, as exemplified by the SLEEP app.
The EP artwork is creative directed by Alex Hunting Studio with CGI by Dada Projects.
SLEEP: Tranquility Base is available now via Deutsche Grammophon here.
Download EP artwork and press images here
@maxrichtermusic | @studiorichtermahr
About Studio Richter Mahr
SRM is a multi-arts production facility created by world-renowned artists Max Richter and Yulia Mahr. Powered by cutting-edge solar and heat-pump technology, SRM is an upcycled farm building set on the edge of 31 acres of English woodland. Proof that world-class recording facilities don’t have to come at a cost to the environment.
As a hub for creative experimentation and collaboration at the highest international level, SRM has a wider ambition: Mahr and Richter see creativity as an elevating force within society, and the studio has this principle at its heart. Operating as both a commercial space to hire and a free space for emerging artists to develop their work, the studio also works with local partners to support the local community.
Facilities onsite include an orchestral recording room with one of the UK’s only Steinway Spirio R concert grand pianos, a Dolby Atmos mix room, programming rooms, a vast collection of vintage synthesisers, a video edit suite, fine art studios, an exhibition space, and a café with produce grown in the kitchen garden. The building is wired to broadcast live performances in surround and in 4k HD.
About Deutsche Grammophon
One of the most prestigious names in global classical music since its foundation in 1898, Deutsche Grammophon has always stood for the highest standards of artistry and sound quality. Home to the greatest artists of all time, the famous yellow label is a beacon to which music lovers all over the world look for outstanding musical interpretations, audio recordings and visual productions. Highly dedicated to the development of new repertoire in art music, Deutsche Grammophon fosters and promotes a whole range of popular contemporary artists and eminent composers. The label also prides itself on its innovative use of the latest technology to provide music digitally to audiences worldwide.
Deutsche Grammophon’s current artist roster boasts some of the most distinguished figures in classical and contemporary music today, including Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel, Elīna Garanča, Hélène Grimaud, Evgeny Kissin, Lang Lang, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Murray Perahia, Maurizio Pollini, Grigory Sokolov, Bryn Terfel, Daniil Trifonov, Rolando Villazón and Krystian Zimerman, as well as Joep Beving, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Dustin O’Halloran, Agnes Obel, Víkingur Ólafsson and Max Richter. In addition, the label’s catalogue represents the cultural legacy of whole generations of maestri and features recordings from many of the finest artists in music history, including Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Vladimir Horowitz, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Herbert von Karajan, Carlos Kleiber, Mstislav Rostropovich and Andrés Segovia.