i remember an interview with them begging their fans not to download their music
― ❊❁❄❆❇❃✴❈plaxico❈✴❃❇❆❄❁❊ (I know, right?), Thursday, 20 August 2009 23:17 (fourteen years ago) link
Mellow and funny new song.
Looking forward to the new disc, out early in '10.
I wish all their discs came with DVDs of them doing the songs live.
― Daniel, Esq., Monday, 12 October 2009 01:24 (fourteen years ago) link
the new disc was supposed to be out "in early 2010." any word on it, e.g., a release date or even a label?
― Daniel, Esq., Monday, 8 March 2010 22:23 (fourteen years ago) link
no i haven't heard a thing since they announced they were working on it in the summer.
― borntohula, Tuesday, 9 March 2010 03:56 (fourteen years ago) link
Noticed they are playing Primavera so hopefully the new album is out before then.
― AnotherDeadHero, Tuesday, 9 March 2010 10:30 (fourteen years ago) link
Nick Zammuto posted on his Facebook profile in January about the album being finished. He also started a blog over here @ http://thebooksmusic.tumblr.com. Exciting.
― noleander, Wednesday, 10 March 2010 02:11 (fourteen years ago) link
cool! thank you both.
― Daniel, Esq., Wednesday, 10 March 2010 02:12 (fourteen years ago) link
waiting. from the tumblr site posted above:
Hey All,Sorry for the length of time since my last post, but very good things have been happening for ‘The Way Out’ and ‘the Books’, and we will have some big announcements about it very soon. For now, suffice it to say, our team is stronger than it’s ever been, and we can’t wait to start playing concerts, and showing y’all what we’ve been building over the last few years.
Sorry for the length of time since my last post, but very good things have been happening for ‘The Way Out’ and ‘the Books’, and we will have some big announcements about it very soon. For now, suffice it to say, our team is stronger than it’s ever been, and we can’t wait to start playing concerts, and showing y’all what we’ve been building over the last few years.
that was mid-march.
― Daniel, Esq., Wednesday, 31 March 2010 23:17 (fourteen years ago) link
i like these guys. they seem down-to-earth, despite the oddball quality of their (excellent) music:
ello all!Finally the news has broken and I can openly gush about the fine partner we’ve found in Jeremy deVine of Temporary Residence. ‘The Way Out’ will be out in July, under Jeremy’s careful orchestration. I feel embarrassed having predicted a much earlier release in the past, but various waves of mishaps, disappointments, near misses, and unexpected redemption knocked the release date into the summer. So it’s a bit later than we all would have liked, but it’s all for good reason, because the team we’ve got for ‘The Way Out’, for all of it’s idiosyncrasies, is incredibly strong. A little back story, then I’ll tell the story of meeting Jeremy. Why so long? It’s been five years since ‘Lost and Safe’. The short answer is children. Both Paul and I married (not each other!), had kids, bought and renovated houses, and kind of settled down since our last album came out. All of that was a welcome change from the incessant touring of 2006 and 2007, and I feel like the work we put into our young families over the past years has made us realize what an incredible thing we have with ‘the books’ and we decided to start working on a new record in late 2008. Having the time away, we came back with a renewed energy that immediately set us down a kind of hilarious and unexpected path that I think is safe to say that know one would have predicted, and yet still sounds (to me, at least) like a perfect extension of what we’ve done, just displaced by five years of growth and change. more about the making of the record as the release nears, but i’m going to rant for a paragraph about the music business so bear with me.Finding a home for this record was a pain in the ass. Everyone I’ve played it for says it’s our best, most daring record yet, and still, all of the labels we admiredthat we thought would go for it wouldn’t touch it. Our former label Tomlab was not an option since we felt we needed better representation in North America, and it would have been nice to have been paid royalties without a fight for the past five years, although we can’t blame Tom personally for that…music sales are low and getting lower, of course, and the first streams to dry out are the cash flows of small labels. There were a number of sparks of support from key members of ‘major indie’ labels and our conversations with them were very promising, until we would find out after weeks of silence that it wasn’t going to happen. The story we kept hearing was as fascinating as it was disappointing…”our label is run by a democratic process and everyone on the team has to be on board for us to commit to a new artist.” Makes sense, superficially…everyone loves democracy, but the more i thought about it, the more i realized that that sounds like the perfect recipe for the homogenization of music. i don’t know any two people who agree about music, let alone a whole group of them, and at any rate, people who agree about everything are certainly not our target audience. So it’s probably for the best they won’t work with us. Lets just do a self release! Yeah! true independence. We got pretty deep into the idea of staring our own label, to the point of planning out a good deal of the logistics and looking for a quality person to manage the day-to-day operations, so we wouldn’t get bogged down to the point where it cut into our time in the studio. It felt (and still feels) like a good option to go it alone in an environment where being nimble is as effective as being strong, and we were inches away from committing to starting our own label. This is where we were in early February.We have a great manager (Jerrod Wilkins), and he has a great lawyer (Paul Sommerstein). Paul S. kept telling Jerrod that we should meet Jeremy deVine of Temporary Residence, and that he has been super impressed in his dealings with him in the past. We had mentally thrown in the towel in dealing with labels of all shapes and sizes at this point, but Jerrod was persistent, and we made the trek to Brooklyn to meet Jeremy and have lunch. We laughed afterwards (still unbeknownst by Jeremy until now) that our first impressions of the TR office were kind of blah. It’s clear that Jeremy is not the kind of guy who spends a lot of time decorating, but that, in the end, is part of why we ended up liking him so much. within the first ten minutes of talking to him it was clear that he has a very rare kind of wit and intelligence, not only mentally but also emotional. It seems he has a very active heart and can feel things very directly… which is very rare indeed, especially in this culture. I think his catalog of releases is proof enough of this. I’d like to think that it’s that kind of emotional intelligence that really sets apart the kind of people that come to our shows from other audiences, so we immediately felt a kind of kinship that was sorely lacking in our other label dealings. The two other things that really won us over were 1: He was extremely straightforward with us, no nonsense, just said what he thought and exactly what his resources were and 2. He knew our music really well, and had obviously processed it in a very personal way. We asked him straight up what he would do if he were in our shoes, and he laid out the pros and cons of self-release vs. 50/50 profit split label deal in a balanced and compelling way, and came to the conclusion that there was no clear best option. We talked about it on the way home from Brooklyn, and were swayed not by the possibility of making a ton of money, but more by the opportunity to work with a guy like Jeremy, who we can absolutely trust and enjoy working with. It’s early on in the process but so far so good, we’re very very pleased to be with Temporary Residence. Goodnight! thanks for reading.Nick
Finally the news has broken and I can openly gush about the fine partner we’ve found in Jeremy deVine of Temporary Residence. ‘The Way Out’ will be out in July, under Jeremy’s careful orchestration. I feel embarrassed having predicted a much earlier release in the past, but various waves of mishaps, disappointments, near misses, and unexpected redemption knocked the release date into the summer. So it’s a bit later than we all would have liked, but it’s all for good reason, because the team we’ve got for ‘The Way Out’, for all of it’s idiosyncrasies, is incredibly strong. A little back story, then I’ll tell the story of meeting Jeremy.
Why so long? It’s been five years since ‘Lost and Safe’. The short answer is children. Both Paul and I married (not each other!), had kids, bought and renovated houses, and kind of settled down since our last album came out. All of that was a welcome change from the incessant touring of 2006 and 2007, and I feel like the work we put into our young families over the past years has made us realize what an incredible thing we have with ‘the books’ and we decided to start working on a new record in late 2008. Having the time away, we came back with a renewed energy that immediately set us down a kind of hilarious and unexpected path that I think is safe to say that know one would have predicted, and yet still sounds (to me, at least) like a perfect extension of what we’ve done, just displaced by five years of growth and change. more about the making of the record as the release nears, but i’m going to rant for a paragraph about the music business so bear with me.
Finding a home for this record was a pain in the ass. Everyone I’ve played it for says it’s our best, most daring record yet, and still, all of the labels we admiredthat we thought would go for it wouldn’t touch it. Our former label Tomlab was not an option since we felt we needed better representation in North America, and it would have been nice to have been paid royalties without a fight for the past five years, although we can’t blame Tom personally for that…music sales are low and getting lower, of course, and the first streams to dry out are the cash flows of small labels. There were a number of sparks of support from key members of ‘major indie’ labels and our conversations with them were very promising, until we would find out after weeks of silence that it wasn’t going to happen. The story we kept hearing was as fascinating as it was disappointing…”our label is run by a democratic process and everyone on the team has to be on board for us to commit to a new artist.” Makes sense, superficially…everyone loves democracy, but the more i thought about it, the more i realized that that sounds like the perfect recipe for the homogenization of music. i don’t know any two people who agree about music, let alone a whole group of them, and at any rate, people who agree about everything are certainly not our target audience. So it’s probably for the best they won’t work with us. Lets just do a self release! Yeah! true independence. We got pretty deep into the idea of staring our own label, to the point of planning out a good deal of the logistics and looking for a quality person to manage the day-to-day operations, so we wouldn’t get bogged down to the point where it cut into our time in the studio. It felt (and still feels) like a good option to go it alone in an environment where being nimble is as effective as being strong, and we were inches away from committing to starting our own label. This is where we were in early February.
We have a great manager (Jerrod Wilkins), and he has a great lawyer (Paul Sommerstein). Paul S. kept telling Jerrod that we should meet Jeremy deVine of Temporary Residence, and that he has been super impressed in his dealings with him in the past. We had mentally thrown in the towel in dealing with labels of all shapes and sizes at this point, but Jerrod was persistent, and we made the trek to Brooklyn to meet Jeremy and have lunch. We laughed afterwards (still unbeknownst by Jeremy until now) that our first impressions of the TR office were kind of blah. It’s clear that Jeremy is not the kind of guy who spends a lot of time decorating, but that, in the end, is part of why we ended up liking him so much. within the first ten minutes of talking to him it was clear that he has a very rare kind of wit and intelligence, not only mentally but also emotional. It seems he has a very active heart and can feel things very directly… which is very rare indeed, especially in this culture. I think his catalog of releases is proof enough of this. I’d like to think that it’s that kind of emotional intelligence that really sets apart the kind of people that come to our shows from other audiences, so we immediately felt a kind of kinship that was sorely lacking in our other label dealings. The two other things that really won us over were 1: He was extremely straightforward with us, no nonsense, just said what he thought and exactly what his resources were and 2. He knew our music really well, and had obviously processed it in a very personal way. We asked him straight up what he would do if he were in our shoes, and he laid out the pros and cons of self-release vs. 50/50 profit split label deal in a balanced and compelling way, and came to the conclusion that there was no clear best option. We talked about it on the way home from Brooklyn, and were swayed not by the possibility of making a ton of money, but more by the opportunity to work with a guy like Jeremy, who we can absolutely trust and enjoy working with. It’s early on in the process but so far so good, we’re very very pleased to be with Temporary Residence.
Goodnight! thanks for reading.
Nick
― Daniel, Esq., Thursday, 15 April 2010 19:12 (fourteen years ago) link
uhhh . . . i accidentally omitted the "h" from "hello." apologies.
new track.
― Daniel, Esq., Wednesday, 28 April 2010 03:05 (fourteen years ago) link
Not loving the album cover (supposing that one is indeed it) but I'm liking the song. Sounds like a natural progression of the sound they were going for in Lost and Safe but with a more focused production... they've always been more of an album band so I think I'll wait for the full album to make a judgement though.
― Moka, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 03:33 (fourteen years ago) link
sounds like the books. not a bad thing.
― sonderangerbot, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 08:54 (fourteen years ago) link
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XRWOH4kQL._SS500_.jpg
Sample-twisting virtuosos The Books are set to release their next full-length, The Way Out, this summer on Temporary Residence Limited.Much like their 2005 effort Lost and Safe, the new record consists of bright collages, some of which have pop or folk-style vocals. "The working concept for the sound of The Way Out was pretty simple: Every track needs to sound like it comes from its own universe," says the band. It will be their first album in almost five years, a stretch of time that can be partly attributed to the incredible amount of cutting and splicing that went into each song."We started collecting audio tapes and video tapes on our last tour and we came home with a mountain of stuff, around 4000 tapes," Zammuto told Pitchfork last summer. "There’s an unbelievable amount of treasure to go through, and that’s what we’ve been up to over the past few years."The Way Out will be The Books’ first release on Temporary Residence Limited, a Brooklyn-based label that houses artists like Mono, Low and Eluvium.
Much like their 2005 effort Lost and Safe, the new record consists of bright collages, some of which have pop or folk-style vocals. "The working concept for the sound of The Way Out was pretty simple: Every track needs to sound like it comes from its own universe," says the band. It will be their first album in almost five years, a stretch of time that can be partly attributed to the incredible amount of cutting and splicing that went into each song.
"We started collecting audio tapes and video tapes on our last tour and we came home with a mountain of stuff, around 4000 tapes," Zammuto told Pitchfork last summer. "There’s an unbelievable amount of treasure to go through, and that’s what we’ve been up to over the past few years."
The Way Out will be The Books’ first release on Temporary Residence Limited, a Brooklyn-based label that houses artists like Mono, Low and Eluvium.
Tracklist
01. Group Autogenics I02. IDKT03. I Didn’t Know That04. A Cold Freezin’ Night05. Beautiful People06. I Am Who I Am07. Chain of Missing Links08. All You Need Is A Wall09. Thirty Incoming10. A Wonderful Phrase By Gandhi11. We Bought The Flood12. The Story of Hip Hop13. Free Translator14. Group Autogenics II
― Boo Radley (Bee OK), Friday, 2 July 2010 06:08 (thirteen years ago) link
very excited for this. hoping for some guest vocals from justin bieber on this disc.
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 2 July 2010 09:55 (thirteen years ago) link
What are The Books like live?
― Salted gnocchimole (admrl), Friday, 2 July 2010 19:05 (thirteen years ago) link
i saw them a few years back and they were playing to a pretty substantial backing track (obviously)
but they also had video synced up to every song which, along with their warm personalities, made the show very enjoyable
― WEB SHERIFF ᶠᶸᶜᵏᵧₒᵤ (LOLK), Friday, 2 July 2010 19:11 (thirteen years ago) link
dude on cello singing + dude on guitar singing, iirc
leaked! listening now...
― borntohula, Friday, 2 July 2010 23:17 (thirteen years ago) link
And? Love this band.
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 3 July 2010 01:28 (thirteen years ago) link
it's pretty solid. pretty dense... a lot to take in. more later!
― borntohula, Saturday, 3 July 2010 14:52 (thirteen years ago) link
what strikes me the most about this album so far is that it is less of a slo-burn experience in comparison to their other stuff. beats/drums play a much more prominent and consistent role in the songs this time around, and at much faster tempos. the departures don't really take away from the music though-- it still sounds very much like the books.
― borntohula, Sunday, 4 July 2010 23:19 (thirteen years ago) link
beats/drums play a much more prominent and consistent role in the songs this time around, and at much faster tempos.
yeah. parts of this disc sound positively rock/disco-y, e.g., i didn't know that and a cold freezin' night. i like it a lot.
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 27 July 2010 19:26 (thirteen years ago) link
yes it's really good. loving the chord changes on the opening track
― sonderangerbot, Tuesday, 27 July 2010 19:49 (thirteen years ago) link
it's a little less "charming" than, say, the lemon of pink, which -- i admit -- is a little disappointing. but the new disc makes up for it with more accessible and immediate songs.
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 27 July 2010 19:53 (thirteen years ago) link
oops i meant the chord changes on "i didn't know that", obviously. i prefer them rocking out tbh, all that clattery percussion and never-ending bass lines is right up my alley.
― sonderangerbot, Wednesday, 28 July 2010 20:40 (thirteen years ago) link
you may just possibly detect from my voice that i am irishand now i leap forward in time
― ciderpress, Saturday, 2 October 2010 17:48 (thirteen years ago) link
:)
(another) great album.
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 2 October 2010 17:52 (thirteen years ago) link
i think this may be my favorite of theirs yet!
― ciderpress, Saturday, 2 October 2010 17:53 (thirteen years ago) link
it's the most song-based, i'd say. actual disco-type beats, too.
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 2 October 2010 17:54 (thirteen years ago) link
like, they're actually recontextualizing the samples in entertaining ways now rather than using them as just collage pieces as they did on the earlier albums
― ciderpress, Saturday, 2 October 2010 17:54 (thirteen years ago) link
well, i'd say their earlier albums had more ramshackle charm and -- to me -- more of a surprising new vibe. but this one has memorable melodies and hooks (e.g., cold freezin' night). one of my favorites of the year.
― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 2 October 2010 18:00 (thirteen years ago) link
This thread reminds me that I still haven't bought this new album. Really like these guys.
― Duke, Saturday, 2 October 2010 19:55 (thirteen years ago) link
cold freezin night is the uberjam. and of course they're one of those bands you have to see on every album's tour because the video stuff is such a big part of the album experience.
― reallysmoothmusic (Jamie_ATP), Saturday, 2 October 2010 22:54 (thirteen years ago) link
They're good, aren't they?
― djh, Sunday, 10 October 2010 17:06 (thirteen years ago) link
i like this but i LOVE "Lost and Safe", i think they did something unique with that, making the samples into songs by singing over them. i really connect with it emotionally.
i v. much love "cold freezin' night" and "group autogenics 1" though.
― jed_, Sunday, 10 October 2010 18:30 (thirteen years ago) link
there are parts that really get me on this.
"whoever you think you presently are...thank you."
― jed_, Sunday, 10 October 2010 18:32 (thirteen years ago) link
bad news:
http://pitchfork.com/news/45239-nick-zammuto-talks-about-ending-the-books-starting-his-new-project/
― frogs you are the dumbest asshole (frogbs), Friday, 27 January 2012 15:26 (twelve years ago) link
I really like some of the Zammuto tracks I've heard, especially "FU C-3PO".
― scott pgwp (pgwp), Friday, 27 January 2012 22:56 (twelve years ago) link
Good news for Books fans, the Zammuto record is really good and not really too different to what he did as a Book
― frogbs, Friday, 15 June 2012 18:33 (twelve years ago) link
It is!
― MaresNest, Friday, 15 June 2012 19:25 (twelve years ago) link
you mean, it is good, or it is very different?
― frogbs, Friday, 15 June 2012 19:37 (twelve years ago) link
It's great.
― Simon H., Saturday, 16 June 2012 02:58 (twelve years ago) link
It's good!
― MaresNest, Saturday, 16 June 2012 08:57 (twelve years ago) link
does it have singing it it? i liked a lot the singing in lost and safe.
― jed_, Saturday, 16 June 2012 15:49 (twelve years ago) link
yeah a lot of singing going on.
― sonderangerbot, Saturday, 16 June 2012 15:54 (twelve years ago) link
Forget if this is on the album or just the EP, but it's great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFlRaZaeM9c
― MaresNest, Saturday, 16 June 2012 16:13 (twelve years ago) link
cheers!
― jed_, Saturday, 16 June 2012 17:19 (twelve years ago) link
yep, it has singing (moreso than the Books records, really), but there tends to be a lot of treatment on the vocals. even though I have a soft spot for Thought for Food I'm starting to think this stuff is generally more interesting than the Books ever were outside of those brilliant flashes they had on each album, "F U C-3PO" is such a mother of a track
― frogbs, Monday, 18 June 2012 17:10 (twelve years ago) link
he sounds like Isaac Brock during the chorus of it too! totally unexpected development
― frogbs, Monday, 18 June 2012 17:11 (twelve years ago) link
I've always loved The Lemon of Pink. I gave the other albums a listen recently, having not listened to them, but none of them quite reached the level of TLoP.
Their videos are worth a watch. The videos to 'Cold Freezin Night' and 'I Didn't Know That' are hilarious.
― Isaiah "Ice" McAdams (cajunsunday), Wednesday, 19 February 2014 21:25 (ten years ago) link
Somehow even when TLoP came out it felt like the kind of album that was going to be the best thing they ever did, like it was an idea that was going to work really well only once.
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 19 February 2014 21:27 (ten years ago) link
well, they had a series of really great, really interesting albums. having said that,
They got more song-lead, less sample based generally? ― mmmm, Wednesday, February 19, 2014
― mmmm, Wednesday, February 19, 2014
. . . definitely. in that regard, there are still a lot of great high-points on the way out.
― Daniel, Esq 2, Wednesday, 19 February 2014 21:49 (ten years ago) link
the "I Didn't Know That" video is one of the best things. wickedly funny too.
― frogbs, Wednesday, 19 February 2014 22:21 (ten years ago) link
think The Way Out is their best.
― jamiesummerz, Thursday, 20 February 2014 16:37 (ten years ago) link
I love "Free Translator" so much.
― Simon H., Thursday, 20 February 2014 18:21 (ten years ago) link
Lost and Safe is my favourite by some way. It's very special to me.
― i lost my shoes on acid (jed_), Thursday, 27 February 2014 23:18 (ten years ago) link
one of those acts that never had a bad album.
― Daniel, Esq 2, Friday, 28 February 2014 03:33 (ten years ago) link
Been relistening to all these albums this week. All four are good but in retrospect The Way Out strikes me as clearly being the best one.
― Abstinence Hawk (frogbs), Thursday, 6 November 2014 04:24 (nine years ago) link
http://songexploder.net/episode-22-the-books/
― MaresNest, Sunday, 18 January 2015 16:52 (nine years ago) link
The Books and Zammuto have created some of the most inventive music of the past decade. So underrated, wish they had the fanbase or cultfollowing of a band like Animal Collective.
Very interesting hearing how that song was conceived, Maresnest.
― Moka, Sunday, 18 January 2015 19:21 (nine years ago) link
I’ve decided today that out of thousands of albums I’ve heard in my life , “Lost and Safe” is probably the one that best captures the sadness and joy of being a human.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 14 June 2018 04:55 (six years ago) link
I will cosign the above sentiment and also add that listening to Zammuto & de Jong's solo stuff really drives home how, together, they managed to create something bigger than the sum of their individual contributions. It would be so cool if they reformed, but even if they never do, they did make four basically perfect albums, IMO.
― a film with a little more emotional balls (zchyrs), Thursday, 14 June 2018 13:15 (six years ago) link
Idk I'd put Zammuto's s/t over a couple of The Books' albums but there's something yeah there's something kind of profound about Lost and Safe.
― obnoxious pun (ultros ultros-ghali), Thursday, 14 June 2018 13:30 (six years ago) link
Really wish I'd ponied up for the Dot In Time set when it was first released.
― Simon H., Thursday, 14 June 2018 13:31 (six years ago) link
always loved the stories about these dudes pillaging thrift shops for old answering machines so they could get totally unique samples
ultimately I think I like the two Zammuto albums a bit more, just cuz they're more tuneful and such. thought a 3rd one was on the horizon but it looks like one of his kids is having a bout with cancer :/
― frogbs, Thursday, 14 June 2018 13:56 (six years ago) link
Looks like there is a new Paul de Jong album, released this year.
― sctttnnnt (pgwp), Thursday, 14 June 2018 15:41 (six years ago) link
Wasn’t Zammuto also supposed to release something since last year and the EP was just a preview?
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 14 June 2018 16:09 (six years ago) link
I think I like what Zammuto brought to the Books better judging by solo albums but this Paul De Jong has some really cool ideas and it’s overall quite bonkers. Do not listen to it on any drug it’s quite the schizophrenic listen.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 14 June 2018 16:12 (six years ago) link
yea I think a full length was supposed to come in 2017 but things got in the way
pretty cool EP though
― frogbs, Thursday, 14 June 2018 16:15 (six years ago) link
Moka, i feel the way you do about books about Emiliana Torrini's "Fisherman's Woman"
― sunburst N snowblind (Ross), Friday, 15 June 2018 02:27 (six years ago) link
Currently drinking whiskey and staying awake for no reason at all and I find their music gets even better as I get older. Their first three albums are probably the ones with the most replay value in my collection. There's a review on rym that goes: "Zammuto makes music that sounds the way hugging a puppy dog feels. I don't know how else to describe it." I agree.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, 8 October 2021 04:17 (two years ago) link
― sunburst N snowblind (Ross)
This is also a very underrated and gorgeous album btw.
the way out is on my shortlist of all time favorite records, at this point
― ciderpress, Friday, 8 October 2021 05:04 (two years ago) link
I always underrate Way Out but it has some of my favorite songs by them.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, 8 October 2021 05:31 (two years ago) link
Namely: “chain of missing links”, “all you need is a wall”, “story of hip hop”
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, 8 October 2021 06:13 (two years ago) link
i remember people ragging on "the story of hip hop" because it was a stupid joke but I thought it was adorable
― frogbs, Friday, 8 October 2021 13:31 (two years ago) link
"All You Need Is a Wall" is S-tier Books for sure. I don't know if I agree with the "puppy dog" evaluation--it's ofc partially true, but it leaves out so much of what makes listening to them compelling. To me, the Books are kind of like the sound of mostly-pleasant dreaming--disjointed, but whole. I actually find the sentimental aspect of their sound less appealing as I age, which I think may be related to my developing allergy for Alan Watts quotes.
I am perennially hoping that Zammuto & de Jong squash their beef and get the band back together. Their solo material is good-to-great (definitely seek out Zammuto's Anchor), but lesser, IMO.
― feed me with your chips (zchyrs), Friday, 8 October 2021 13:34 (two years ago) link
kind of curious what Zammuto has been up to these last 3 years, he went from blogging extensively about every single track The Books did to being offline entirely
― frogbs, Friday, 8 October 2021 13:53 (two years ago) link
you may just possibly detect from my voice that I am Irish...AND NOW I LEAP FORWARD IN TIME.
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Friday, 8 October 2021 14:11 (two years ago) link
found a copy of The Way Out at a very reasonable price, played it and was disappointed to hear a bunch of surface noise on Side 3. turns out it exists on the original recording. ahh, the joys of The Books on wax
anyway this record is very good, it's both their most serious/existential and their goofiest at the same time. the concept behind "Free Translator" is so brilliant, I used to love playing around with online translators the same way
― frogbs, Wednesday, 1 February 2023 03:09 (one year ago) link
Thanks for reviving this thread on all things Books, which I hadn't seen. On The Books - The Lemon of Pink, I posted the following relic, written back when I first heard them:
You're reminding me of the unusual pleasures of these rekkids----here's my preview of their Columbus oh show of long ago (2011):
The BooksThursday @ WexnerThe Books play (and sample) plucked, strummed and bowed instruments, while talking and singing with countless other sounds, also sampled (and played). Waves of fragments move calmly, and, on their first album, The Lemon of Pink, venerable voices provide “helpful” gibberish. The Books like to ricochet through such decay, although the subsequent Lost & Save risks spelling this out a little too plainly, before zigzagging through unexpected insights and comedy. Their new version of Nick Drake’s “Cello Song,”* even grooves with the glitches of a cheapo CD-R!
*It features Jose Gonzalez and was contributed to the Red Hot charity series comp Dark Was The Night:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvLfcRnCbAo
― dow, Thursday, 2 February 2023 19:13 (one year ago) link
("cheapo CD-R" was what I downloaded the promo track onto, being behind the tech curve back then and now)
― dow, Thursday, 2 February 2023 19:16 (one year ago) link
one of my favorite Books moments is I think somewhere on Lost and Safe, at the end of one track a voice comes in and says something like "expectation leads to disappointment, if you never expect anything, you uh...well....ah, whatever, I don't know". such a perfect sample for them
― frogbs, Thursday, 2 February 2023 19:19 (one year ago) link
There’s a Song Exploder episode on the song with that sample. It’s Zammuto’s brother, IIRC.
― The land of dreams and endless remorse (hardcore dilettante), Friday, 3 February 2023 03:50 (one year ago) link
So many good sample clashes with them.
I love one that goes “you may fall and break your leg” followed by “and then one leg of shorter than the other”.
Also it doesn’t make too much sense but “it will rain, it will rain” followed by seagulls doing that sort of tone twice.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, 3 February 2023 06:07 (one year ago) link