#50 - Ryan & Steve

Max Richter

The Blue Notebooks

2004

The Blue Notebooks is easily Max Richter’s finest, most cohesive, and most moving work of his catalog of modern classical / electronic compositions. My fandom of this record makes it that much easier for certain people (read: Steve) to pigeonhole my taste as anything with dramatic strings, piano, and a melancholy, yet beautiful atmosphere. While I admit, I’m a sucker for all these things, this record is far more important than others of its kind mostly because of the context of its discovery and the emotional memories it evokes.

The night I first heard tracks form The Blue Notebooks was late one night during my first year of college at U of I. I felt very overwhelmed with the “partying” environment of the university and the sheer size of it all. Needless to say I adapted very poorly to my new surroundings and relied on my relationship at the time as a sort of social crutch. I had made very few friends since getting to college and missed my close friends from Peoria terribly. So, late one night while studying on my top bunk, I got a call from Steve who was at Drake and he had me listen to “On the Nature of Daylight.” Missing my good friend and listening to Max Richter on a particularly down-trodden night at college created a particularly emotional memory that I still remember distinctly five years later. I’m not too proud to admit that even now this album can move me to tears. -R.C

I always admire when artists create simply arranged music that turns out to be very powerful. Richter achieves this here on The Blue Notebooks. Each track has only a few parts and doesn’t move too much within the song, but every song on the album has its own distinct feel and role. The only things I could do without are Tilda Swinton’s little typewriter segments throughout the record; I find them to be rather disruptive and cheesy, like a bad dramatic movie that thinks it’s smarter than it really is. - Phil