STILL WAY OUT Lemon Of Pink in 2003, an album sitting on the ‘universal acclaim’ rating of 86 out of 100 on Metacritic. Then in 2005 they released Lost And Safe, again universally acclaimed at 84.
IT’S BEEN A DAMN LONG TIME BETWEEN READS BUT FANS OF THE BOOKS CAN REJOICE; THE NEXT CHAPTER HAS ARRIVED. PAUL DE JONG AND NICK ZAMMUTO EXPLAIN TO AAROM WILSON THEIR STROKES OF GENIUS, AND THE STRANGE SHORT STORIES THAT DISTRACTED THEM IN-BETWEEN.
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lthough there’s been a myriad of smaller side projects to whet the appetites of their rather obsessive fanbase, the wait for the New York and Vermont-based experimental outfit’s forthcoming album has been a long one indeed. Sure, five plus years is no AC/DC-like wait between albums, but when you’re the kind of act that creates music so dissimilar to anything else out there, time drags on more than a publically attributable Hank Moody second novel. “There are two things,” begins Paul de Jong’s excuse for the wait between LPs. “It’s after a period of making two albums and touring. Then there’s a period of burn out, I think. And now we’re focusing on where we can go next and what makes sense. We both started families, which changed our personal life – it’s a huge commitment. It makes you look at what you’re doing and how you think about your time, and how you spend your time.”
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The Books’ brand of writing isn’t simple; it’s time consuming. Usually comprised of infinitely detailed layers, samples and organic noodlings, their music might be best described as folktronica. It also embodies a degree of artfulness that both perplexes and delights. “I think that we play around with absurdity at all times,” describes Nick Zammuto of their writing process. “It starts down a path making some sort of sense and at some point it breaks down. And that’s purposeful to a degree and also exalts what we do. We’re interested in creating a constellation and really having the listener’s mind fill it in with whatever they have to really meet people half way. So we want to give people as much room for their own interpretation as possible.” With their unique sounding 2002 debut album entitled Thought For Food, it should come as no surprise The Books place great importance on creating music to make people think. They followed this up with The
Although continuing to remain an act unbeknownst to many, The Books are considered the darlings of thoughtful music by many an indie obsessive. Since 2005, such Books worms have had more than a few good reads to keep their eyes from popping out of their heads. These include Scott Herren’s Prefuse 73 Reads The Books EP reinterpretation of material from The Books’ back catalogue and a collaboration with José González to cover Nick Drake’s Cello Song, released on the impressive Dark Was The Night fundraising compilation early last year. Then there was the mini CD release Music For A French Elevator And Other Short Format Oddities By The Books. “We seem to attract unusual things like this,” laughs Zammuto while explaining how the Elevator project came about. “It’s part of a project called the One Percent Initiative where one percent of the cost of building, or renovating the building in this case, goes into art for the building. So the [French] Ministry Of Culture invited us to submit music for their elevator. They wanted three or four one minute tracks so that’s what we came up with.” Interestingly, the music produced for the project rates as some of The Books’ most abstract, and must certainly come as a surprise to those being elevated. Have they personally taken the upwards trip to laugh at the responses? “No, we haven’t. We’re going to have to try that thought. We got a chance to play their radio shack there a while ago. That was fun, but no, I haven’t been to the Ministry Of Culture before. It’s probably the kind of thing where I’d need a passkey to get into anyway,” smiles Zammuto, appreciating the irony. The last five year’s productive oddities don’t end there either. “We ended up working on a documentary film, scoring that as well. I think that’s going to be released this year at some point. It’s about the Biosphere Project, which is this crazy kind of utopian plan to live on Mars someday,” laughs Zammuto. Image has played an increasing part in The Books’ music to the point it’s almost difficult to distinguish which one’s leading which. Zammuto addresses this thought, “At first we were interested in videos for the
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music. Now that we’re building visual and audio libraries simultaneously, we’re able to find those relationships from early on and really build them from that. It’s kind of the chicken and egg thing; when you watch it you have no idea what came first so they become totally integrated.” Another reason their new album, The Way Out, has taken so long to be completed is because they’ve been working on building their libraries of not only sound samples, but also visual cues. With “probably a couple of thousand GBs” at their disposal, one of the new album’s main influences has been their recent obsession with self-help tapes and videos. “We had a lot of meditation LPs and things like that, but for the most part it was stuff from the ‘80s that we were finding. Their tone of voice is very unique to this style of production where you’re trying to systematically relax your body and they’re taking you through this journey with your body but it’s very calm and relaxing – wonderfully innocent kinds of voices that are so mellow – and that feeling kind of carries through with whatever you’re doing with that work. But the great thing is that they speak so slowly and clearly that you can cut and rearrange what they’re saying… You come up with crazy stuff.” As to how much you’ll have to use your brain to enjoy the experience, The Way Out is again a wonderfully complex and perplexing creation that is both enjoyable and thought provoking. While songs like The Story Of Hip Hop seem more or less just cute and catchy manipulations of sounds, others like Beautiful People show them to be lyrically at their playful heights while I Am Who I Am’s almost twisted techno beats are indicative of The Books’ lack of wanting to play by the rules to create conventional music. De Jong says of their creations, “It’s not something to make an intellectual statement, in the sense that it’s got to do more than one thing, I think. There’s an intellectual side to it, a musical side to it; it’s an organic way of working with what’s out there.” Food for thought, and just the way The Books should be. WHO: The Books WHAT: The Way Out (Temporary Residence Limited/ Popfrenzy)