The Books

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.

there are parts that really get me on this.

"whoever you think you presently are
...thank you."

bad news:

http://pitchfork.com/news/45239-nick-zammuto-talks-about-ending-the-books-starting-his-new-project/

I really like some of the Zammuto tracks I've heard, especially "FU C-3PO".

Good news for Books fans, the Zammuto record is really good and not really too different to what he did as a Book

It is!

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.

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.