Max Richter is prolific to a fault. In recent years he has been releasing records faster than anybody could possibly keep up with, particularly film scores and soundtracks. I've forced myself to stop buying so many of his records because I don't feel like I've really even spent enough time with some of the ones I bought years ago, let alone any new ones. Not all of them have been money well spent (more on that another time), but I still seem to keep thinking about buying more. But it wasn't always like that. Not all that long ago he released standalone albums that weren't held together by a narrative or very obvious theme; The Blue Notebooks is one such album.
Compared to his more recent, non-soundtrack releases, The Blue Notebooks feels like an anomaly, but it's the lack of over-bearing theme that makes it so enjoyable. The songs play like just songs that happen to have been written at a similar time and in a similar way; it's something you'd think nothing of from a rock or pop album, but when you think about it alongside Sleep or Voices or Woolf Works or Vivaldi Recomposed it feels a world apart. Without the weight of a theme, it feels light, which is saying something for the album that spawned On the Nature of Daylight, a song that would carve a life outside of Max's career. It's an incredible song, and worthy of all the praise it gets (and the presence of two versions on this album, and countless other slight variations and re-recordings). Shadow Journal shouldn't be overlooked though, as it probably does a better job of representing what Max's early output sounded like - minimal, electronic but with a cutting and memorable violin. Organum is lovely and The Trees is the other highlight - more soaring violins and melancholy pianos. The build up breaks before it has a chance to explode in a Godspeed or Mogwai or EITS manner, which reminds me more of Low, a band who've often pushed songs to that same point just before they explode/implode. I'm sure there's a wealth of classical influences that a more learned person would be able to reel off here, but I'll have to stick with my rock references.
I bought this copy one Saturday afternoon in Truck Store, along with the second Talons album (a post-rock band with two violinists, so two albums with more in common than you'd assume on paper). I'd often stroll down there on a Saturday afternoon and around that time they always had a cracking box of records labelled "post-rock / neo-classical / noise" and some of the best (non-Jason Molina) records I bought in that shop came from there. It was my fifth Richter album in four years, having been introduced to him on Infra. This is the 2015 reissue, so ten years after the original release and not long after Max's huge increase in recorded output. But I didn't know all of that, I just thought it was another nice neo-classical record to play. Whilst the vinyl is 180 grams, there's a huge amount of crackling on my copy during the first recording of On the Nature of Daylight, but it's far from the only version I have of that song, so I'm not too worried.
Format: 12"
Tracks: 12
Cost: £21 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 15/08/15
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download
