The Books

"PS" is particularly cute because it showcases the distinctive giggle of Patti Schmidt, eminence grise of Canadian public radio's "Brave New Waves".

Hooray for shilling on ILM.

Anyone aware of any new projects from this band? Their last disc -- Lost and Safe -- was released in 2005. The news section of their web site hasn't been updated since May 2007.

Their site also has this sobering message about how difficult it is to make a living as an artist:

A Note About Our Finances:

We feel the need to dispel any notions that we are financially sitting pretty because of the acclaim our music has enjoyed. It's true, we've released a couple of records and we're grateful to all of the writers who have taken the time to write about them, but unfortunately our record sales do not reflect this. Our work, although deeply satisfying to us, has left us both on the brink of financial collapse since we began, so we are asking you: Please, do not steal our music thinking that we can afford it. We barely get by, and aren't able to afford basic things like health insurance, let alone raising a family, etc. We love what we do, and we love that people listen, but if you would like to see our work continue, please support us, and all of the artists you enjoy, as directly as possible. The sad fact is, we can make a much better living selling t-shirts than we can selling music, so please help us keep this going.

Depressing.

New disc early next year.

everything i've heard has been pretty kickass.

Nice. Wasn't a big fan of Lost and Safe but looking forward to this all the same. And they're fantastic live.

That's great news. I'd wondered if they'd hung it up and just didn't tell anyone.

yea i thought they gave up too. i love the first three albums

I'd wondered if they'd hung it up and just didn't tell anyone.

It certainly seemed possible, given the "Note About Their Finances" above. But I'm very glad they didn't.

I want to say it seems like they have been touring in more specific venues like contemporary art museums, experimental music festivals, and I guess even some college towns, which I guess makes sense with all their aleatoric sensibilities. I would assume 'high art' commissions probably bring in more money for them than record sales do.

i remember an interview with them begging their fans not to download their music

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.

the new disc was supposed to be out "in early 2010." any word on it, e.g., a release date or even a label?

no i haven't heard a thing since they announced they were working on it in the summer.

Noticed they are playing Primavera so hopefully the new album is out before then.

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.

cool! thank you both.

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.

that was mid-march.

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

uhhh . . . i accidentally omitted the "h" from "hello." apologies.

new track.

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.

sounds like the books. not a bad thing.

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.

Tracklist

01. Group Autogenics I
02. IDKT
03. I Didn’t Know That
04. A Cold Freezin’ Night
05. Beautiful People
06. I Am Who I Am
07. Chain of Missing Links
08. All You Need Is A Wall
09. Thirty Incoming
10. A Wonderful Phrase By Gandhi
11. We Bought The Flood
12. The Story of Hip Hop
13. Free Translator
14. Group Autogenics II

very excited for this. hoping for some guest vocals from justin bieber on this disc.

What are The Books like live?

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

dude on cello singing + dude on guitar singing, iirc

leaked! listening now...

And? Love this band.

it's pretty solid. pretty dense... a lot to take in. more later!

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.

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.

yes it's really good. loving the chord changes on the opening track

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.

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.

you may just possibly detect from my voice that i am irish
and now i leap forward in time

:)

(another) great album.

i think this may be my favorite of theirs yet!

it's the most song-based, i'd say. actual disco-type beats, too.

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

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.

This thread reminds me that I still haven't bought this new album. Really like these guys.

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.

They're good, aren't they?

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.

you mean, it is good, or it is very different?

It's great.

It's good!

does it have singing it it? i liked a lot the singing in lost and safe.

yeah a lot of singing going on.

Forget if this is on the album or just the EP, but it's great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFlRaZaeM9c

cheers!

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

he sounds like Isaac Brock during the chorus of it too! totally unexpected development

Was the box set vinyl only?

And, if so, what CD would recommend after "Lost and Safe"?

the next album, has Tokyo on it

go! quickly!

actually the previous album. Lost and Safe is their third and both the first two are better

The Lemon Of Pink > Thought For Food > Lost And Safe, haven't heard The Way Out.. They got more song-lead, less sample based generally? Saw them once. Really good use of visuals.

The Way Out isn't their best album, but it does have a lot of their best work on it, especially "All You Need Is A Wall" and "We Bought The Flood." "I Didn't Know That" is fun, too.

I never got a chance to see them play :( I dig Zammuto's solo stuff so far, though it's not quite the same. I wonder what DeJong is up to now.

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.

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.

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

. . . definitely. in that regard, there are still a lot of great high-points on the way out.

the "I Didn't Know That" video is one of the best things. wickedly funny too.

think The Way Out is their best.

I love "Free Translator" so much.

Lost and Safe is my favourite by some way. It's very special to me.

one of those acts that never had a bad album.

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.

http://songexploder.net/episode-22-the-books/

The Books and Zammuto have created some of the most inventive music of the past decade. So underrated, wish they had the fanbase or cult
following of a band like Animal Collective.

Very interesting hearing how that song was conceived, Maresnest.

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.

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.

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.

Really wish I'd ponied up for the Dot In Time set when it was first released.

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 :/

Looks like there is a new Paul de Jong album, released this year.

Wasn’t Zammuto also supposed to release something since last year and the EP was just a preview?

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.

yea I think a full length was supposed to come in 2017 but things got in the way

pretty cool EP though

Moka, i feel the way you do about books about Emiliana Torrini's "Fisherman's Woman"

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, i feel the way you do about books about Emiliana Torrini's "Fisherman's Woman"

― 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

I always underrate Way Out but it has some of my favorite songs by them.

Namely: “chain of missing links”, “all you need is a wall”, “story of hip hop”

i remember people ragging on "the story of hip hop" because it was a stupid joke but I thought it was adorable

"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.

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

you may just possibly detect from my voice that I am Irish...AND NOW I LEAP FORWARD IN TIME.

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

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 Books
Thursday @ Wexner
The 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

("cheapo CD-R" was what I downloaded the promo track onto, being behind the tech curve back then and now)

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

There’s a Song Exploder episode on the song with that sample. It’s Zammuto’s brother, IIRC.

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.