The Blue Notebooks

Richter wrote the album in 2003 as the war in Iraq approached, and Wikipedia places the recording about a week after the anti-war march of 15 February 2003. uDiscover describes it being made in a great rush, with the family short of money. All the strings were recorded in one three-hour session at Eastcote, on an MCI desk once owned by Decca, to 16-track two-inch tape, with ribbon microphones and plate reverbs; the players mostly did not hear the electronics or a click. Richter worked up demos in his own Pro Tools room, and Mandy Parnell mastered it at The Exchange. He told Sound On Sound that he liked old tape, old synths and people playing.

Tilda Swinton reads from Kafka's The Blue Octavo Notebooks and from Czesław Miłosz's Unattainable Earth and Hymn of the Pearl. Richter called it a protest record and named Kafka as the patron saint of doubt.

AllMusic gave it five stars and Pitchfork 8.7, Mark Pytlik hearing a case study in direct, minor-key melody. It went Silver in Britain. Deutsche Grammophon reissued it in 2014. The 15 Years Edition of 11 May 2018 added a second disc with the Orchestral Version of On the Nature of Daylight, a new string recording called Entropy, remixes by Jlin and Konx-om-Pax, and the Dinah Washington mash-up from Shutter Island. The 20 Year Edition, released digitally on 31 January 2025, added a new solo Piano Version.