For nearly 10 years, the duo of Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong, known collectively as The Books, has pursued a singular and almost unclassifiable musical direction. Combining Brian Eno’s Ambient sound, found-sound elements and warped Indie Rock sensibilities — with touches of Frank Zappa’s avant-garde ethic and Negativland’s cut-and-paste songcraft thrown in for color — The Books’ discography is a sonic collage of skewed beauty and intelligence.
After relatively brief gaps in their release schedule — 2002’s Thought For Food, 2003’s The Lemon of Pink, 2005’s Lost and Safe and 2006’s Music for a French Elevator EP — The Books took nearly five years to craft their latest work, The Way Out. But don’t get the idea they were locked away in studio isolation, arduously assembling their masterwork over half a decade.
“When we started working together, we were both single men moving around a little bit and in the past five years that changed,” de Jong says, fresh from a soundcheck on The Books’ current tour. “We both started families and found ourselves houses where we made studios. That’s taken up quite a bit of time. Then creating a new sample library took almost three years and then making the new record … time flies.”
The Books play the Southgate House Wednesday. Go here to read Brian Baker’s full interview and to get ticket/club details.
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 2, 2010.
