Richard Anthony Jay – Imperfect Beauty

During the recording of Imperfect Beauty, Richard Anthony Jay apparently had “music theory textbooks never far from his side”, which anecdotally indicates both the album’s strengths and its weaknesses. Jay’s classical fusion is precise and impressively composed, qualities that have led to soundtrack appearances and comparisons to Yann Tiersen and Michael Nyman. But there’s also an artificiality to its evocative qualities, which makes the title more accurate than was perhaps intended.

There is something off-puttingly aggrandising about its high-mindedness, with titles referencing dead French photographers and weighty single-word abstractions (Time, Silence). Announcing that The Tailor has “evolved into a short film” sounds impressive, till you realise it’s just another way of saying it’s got a video, while the music is similarly po-faced; all emotive strings and plaintive piano refrains. Max Richter may be the hip name to drop, but Mike Oldfield is perhaps more appropriate. [Chris Buckle]