Bill Frisell: Richter 858
Mike Barnes, The Wire, March 2005
RICHTER 858 begins explosively with guitar, violin, viola and cello producing an atonal storm akin to George Crumb's Black Angels. This cedes to slow guitar chords by Bill Frisell, with the string players alternating long lines and quick flourishes. This is programme music but of a different kind, in that each of these eight pieces is inspired by a 1999 series of paintings by German artist Gerhard Richter, where the artist produces vivid evocative abstracts, often on aluminium. Horizontal planes of colour are produced by the paint being dragged across the surface, sometimes becoming a blur of hues and interspersed with striking visual details.
Total word count of piece: 403
