British composer Max Richter announced a sequel to his last album ‘Voices’ which was released in 2020. The sequel album, titled ‘Voices 2′ is set to release later this year, and is reported to be closely connected to its forerunner ‘Voices’ which talked about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Richter also released the first single from the album titled ‘Mirrors’ which is available to stream on all platforms now.
In a statement released to the press, Richter said, “One of the things that was really striking, when we premiered the music, was that even though everyone knows of the Declaration, not many people have actually read it or spent time with it. The overwhelming comment we had from the audience was ‘it’s amazing to hear that text’,”
He said further that if people listened to ‘Voices’ and if they spent time with the text (The Universal Declaration of Human Rights) then with the sequel, they’d spent time really thinking about it, which Richter said would be the “perfect outcome.” The artist also released the first single from the album titled ‘Mirrors’ and shared a music video for the same, which included a clip created by Yulia Mahr, that showed a sequence of flowers in inverted colours. You can watch the music video down below:
Speaking of the music video, Mahr said, “Since the theme of ‘Voices 2’ is the future we wish to write, I chose to concentrate on the topic of re-birth, a new Spring. Hope.” and that “the flowers are all negative versions of themselves – out of the negative can be born a future that is full of beauty and the positive. History is not inevitable.”
The predecessor to ‘Voices 2′, ‘Voices’ was released on the 31st of July, 2020 and featured the voices of over one hundred people reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in over 50 languages. Vocals for the album were crowd-sourced from fan submissions from all across the world.
Speaking of the need to create the album, Richter at the time had said to NME, “The opening words of the declaration, drafted in 1948, are ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’. These inspiring words are a guiding principle for the whole declaration but, looking around at the world we have made in the decades since they were written, it is clear that we have forgotten them,”
“The opening words of the declaration, drafted in 1948, are ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’. These inspiring words are a guiding principle for the whole declaration but, looking around at the world we have made in the decades since they were written, it is clear that we have forgotten them,” Richter said at the time,“The recent brutal events in the US, leading to the tragic deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, as well as countless other abuses around the world, are proof of that. At such times it is easy to feel hopeless but, just as the problems of our world are of our own making, so the solutions can be.”
Richter said that the album was created keeping in mind the “brutal events in the US, leading to the tragic deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, as well as countless other abuses around the world” but further stated that “just as the problems of our world are of our own making, so the solutions can be.” He concluded saying, “While the past is fixed, the future is yet unwritten, and the declaration sets out an uplifting vision of a better and fairer world that is within our reach if we choose it. ‘VOICES’ is a musical space to reconnect with these inspiring principles and Yulia Mahr’s striking film depicts this inspiration in a beautiful way, while offering a glimpse into her full length film of our project to come.”
‘Voices 2′ is scheduled to release on the 9th of April, 2021 through Decca. You can pre-order the album here.
