The Books

The Books emerged in June 2002 with the release of their first album Thought for Food, after two years of working on and off in makeshift studios in New York, Los Angeles, Andover MA, and Hot Springs NC. To The Books’ total surprise the album received rave reviews throughout the independent music community and worldwide press. Though The Books are hard to categorize they are often pressed in interviews to categorize themselves. It took them almost as long as the making of their album to come up with this remotely suitable answer: blipworld / fakegrass / speedblues / chamberclick / eccentrock / country&eastern / glitch post-anything music with samples, closely followed by “food band.”

In late 2002 The Books took up residence in the quiet post-industrial hamlet of North Adams, MA and began carving out a new album, which was released in October 2003 as The Lemon of Pink again to worldwide acclaim. The main difference from Thought for Food is its greater coherence and more intimate character, due chiefly to the fact that the entire album was composed in a tiny pantry adjoining the kitchen of their apartment over a continuous period of six months. Immediately after completing The Lemon of Pink, The Books created their website (www.thebooksmusic.com) and rehearsed a one-off show which was performed in October 2003 at the Third Coast Audio Festival in Chicago before – again to their great surprise – a very enthusiastic audience. At that time they also collaborated with veteran radio maker Gregory Whitehead on the 90-minute radio play “The Loneliest Road,” commissioned by BBC3, which went on to win the Sony Academy Gold Award in the drama category in May 2004.

Today The Books are working in North Adams and New York, furiously writing and recording their next album to be released in April 2005 and are working excitedly on their live show for tour in the Spring. Aside from their slowly developing vocal and instrumental skills, their insane library of recorded sound samples has been expanded to include a quickly growing collection of video samples which they intend to use both on stage and for installations and movies of a more permanent nature. Add to that machines which rhythmically blow giant smoke rings and a rattling filing cabinet as a rhythm section and you might get a sense of what The Books are up to for the next season or two. Of course they will also bring their instruments: cello, guitar, bass guitar, samplers, mandolins, a clavinet and whatever else sounds right.