Composer creates 8 hour album to put people to sleep

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — It's a lullaby for adults called "Sleep." A really long lullaby.

British composer Max Richter released an 8 hour album on Friday that's meant to help people fall asleep as they listen to it, and stay asleep.

The album, which can be sampled and downloaded from iTunes, was designed to be the length of a good night's sleep.

"It's my personal lullaby for a frenetic world," Richter said. "A manifesto for a slower pace of existence."

The album is scored for strings, piano, electronics and vocals, but doesn't contain words and is meant to be listened to at night.


It's an experiment into how music and consciousness can connect in a different way. It's an area which has fascinated me a long time — how the mind functions while sleeping and how music can interact with that.

–Max Richter


"It's an experiment into how music and consciousness can connect in a different way," Richter said in a YouTube trailer for the album. "It's an area which has fascinated me a long time — how the mind functions while sleeping and how music can interact with that."

There's also a one-hour edited version called "From Sleep."

The full-length album will eventually be performed to a live audience which Richter hopes will fall asleep. According to Deutsche Grammophon, the label behind the album, the concert will be held in September in Berlin and audience members will lie in beds instead of seats.

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