Today, in our music section, the ocean sings. Its waves become a pulse, meet strings, piano and human voices — and unfold in Max Richter’s new album While the Flood Rages.
It all begins with water. In the composition Wave After Wave — “Wave After Wave” — a processed recording of the ocean turns into a rhythm reminiscent of a heartbeat. Thus a journey is born in which the breath of the waves and human creativity sound together.
The first note is water
The album was released on 16 October 2026. In fifteen compositions united into three acts, Richter brings together orchestra, piano, choir, electronics and processed field recordings.
The oceanic pulse of the opening piece is one way of linking these different sounds. Another is a recurring piano motif. As the album develops, it appears in new surroundings, remaining recognizable while gradually changing.
In this musical fabric there is also room for unexpected sources: for the electronic composition Eerie Music Richter used electromagnetic recordings of the technical systems in his studio. Natural processes and the operation of devices turn out to be material for a single composer’s ear.
The listener is invited to follow the transformations: to notice how a familiar sound takes on a different role, how a small intonation links episodes far removed from one another.
From movement — into sound
The album has a backstory. Its material grew out of the music for the ballet MaddAddam, created by choreographer Wayne McGregor after Margaret Atwood’s trilogy. This is the third major collaboration between Richter and McGregor after Infra and Woolf Works.
For the standalone album, the composer rebuilt the material anew — so that the musical journey unfolds through listening alone, without the need to see the stage action.
What once met with the dancers' movement now leaves space for each person's imagination. The music offers a direction, while images, sensations and inner responses are born in the encounter with the listener.
A place where people gather to listen
The release of While the Flood Rages is accompanied by the project WTFR Global Listening Events — intimate gatherings at which people listen to the album together. Cafés, small bars and spaces with quality audio systems become, for a time, halls of attentive listening.
On 30 October, such a gathering took place at the Omelas Listening Room in San Juan. The organisers invited people to hear the recording in full, with devices put away; the space was arranged so that one could lie down. Richter himself was not present and did not perform — the main event of the evening was the shared listening.
This format brings back a simple pleasure: to let the work unfold in its own time. To wait for the next part, to hear the return of a theme, to notice a pause. To be near other people for whom, right now, music is also enough.
“Now We Can Sing”
The album closes with Now We Can Sing. In this composition, the returning piano motif unfolds into a choral sound. The label describes the finale as a reflection on the voice and the connection between people.
The beginning with a processed recording of the ocean and the ending with human voices allow one to hear yet another beautiful line in the album. The wave becomes a rhythm, the rhythm meets the instruments, and then the musical space is filled with the breath of the choir.
For our section “Music of the Oceans,” this is a particularly close image: a person listens to nature and continues what they have heard through their own creativity.
What did this add to the sound of the planet?
Another way to feel one's own part in its polyphony.
First — a wave. Its movement becomes a pulse, strings and piano join in, and then the polyphony of the choir unfolds. The song of the ocean continues in human breath — acquiring new timbres, intonations and meanings.
Out of these interweavings a planetary symphony is born: a multitude of inimitable sounds come together into a living whole. Its harmony is created by the very connection between them.
