Max Richter

Sleep is probably my favorite activity. I wrote this piece out of gratitude that I'm able to sleep well as an offering to people who don't.

Traditional methods for falling asleep work. Non-taxing, repetitive mental tasks have a lulling effect, and I built those patterns into 'Sleep'.

People have written about 'Sleep' as if it were some kind of record attempt, but I could just put repeat marks at the end, and it would be 16 hours. It's not about that.

I can't usually sleep if I'm listening to music. It seems to fire up my mind, and I keep engaging with it to see what it's doing.

All music is just a collision of sounds until you know its internal conventions and understand the nuances. It's a question of familiarity.

You can get away with a lot more in a film or television score. It is contextual.