The Books – The Way Out
Temporary Residence Limited: 2010
The Books are an electronic duo based out of New York. But while this formula may sound familiar initially, the group produces a sound that’s totally unique. On The Way Out, the pair bend sounds, tempos and recorded word to create soundscapes that tinker along folk, pop, techno, dance and rock, ultimately settling into a postmodern patchwork genre all their own.
Forgoing drums, The Books instead piece together percussive clocks, doors and a dizzying array of other bells and whistles. The resulting songs on the 14-track album hum along, producing hypnotic hymnals and pop-oriented beats.
The opening track, Group Autogenics I, starts the listener with self-help and hypnotherapist voices. Quite quickly, it becomes apparent the listener is in for an escapist adventure. Things get stranger from there as disjointed sounds are strung together into crazy combinations, still coming out with cohesive cuts. Perhaps there’s a reason it’s been years nearly eight years since their last full-length record – 2003’s Lemon of Pink. The intricacies of the sounds layered here sound like someone making a mosaic sculpture of the Eiffel Tower.
On standout “Beautiful People”, The Books produce what I would approximate as math class aboard a spaceship where the sole means of instruction is via chorales. A hallway of ticking clocks and pushy brass give way to a trip-hop vocal beat and sassy shouting on “IDKT”. “All You Need Is A Wall” features grungy, wallowing guitars, eventually unleashing a beautiful blanket of sound.
For a 50-minute rocket ship into some spatial sounds, you could do far worse than The Way Out.
3.5 out of 5
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