The Seattle-based jazz composer and instrumentalist, Bill Frisell,
has released a new album entitled Richter 858, inspired by a group
of eight abstract paintings by German artist, Gerhard Richter. He
has accompanied each of the paintings with its own composition of
music, which can be played in the form of a CD-rom slide show. Frisell
first saw Richter's paintings at the San Francisco Museum of Modern
Art and worked rapidly to create the album in about ten hours. Frisell
succeeds in developing this new genre that is profoundly reflective
and innovative - as are Richter's works themselves. It is also recognised
that Richter himself usually works to music. The composition of
the music harmonises naturally with the extraordinary range of sounds
required, creating total compatibility with the paintings. The new
production by Frisell is distributed by Songlines Recordings.