As Far As I Can Tell

The Books

This week I discovered The Books, and not in a long time have I found and artist that so instantly excited me. Their music is a college of electronic bits, folky banjo, violin, and vocal samples. They’re experimental, but know just when change pace to avoid being tedious. At first it reminded me of John Cage and aeatoric music, but it’s far too well orchestrated to be in that realm.

In a Pitchfork interview, members note being influenced by Dadaists, Surrealists, and Fluxus; which describes the music better then a listing of overlapping musical genres could. It reminds me of walking down a busy street, losing track of time in an art gallery or spending hours eavesdropping and watching cars in the park. There’s a calming sense of wonderment in their music, and I’d definitely recommend headphones.

MP3s:
Record Label Site
Sample tracks from Insound

View Comments (4)

# March 17, 2004 11:22 PM


 

Comments

They’re great! Have you ever kept the radio on seek when you’re driving? You get some interesting juxtapositions.

Posted by: vanessa on March 18, 2004 12:12 PM

Exactly. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, but this really makes me want to get a mindisc recorder. What I ideally want is to have a digital device that can take a mic input and record directly to a digital file — like an ipod with a microphone jack.

Posted by: simon on March 18, 2004 1:46 PM

you can get voice recorders for ipods now, silly! (i’m feeling hot now, knowing something you don’t know in the digital realm) (on a related note, i interviewed with the huge apple store this week!)

Posted by: jim on March 19, 2004 1:59 AM

My camera does that. I have a 2 min long sound clip from Seattle from when that guy from some band cornered you and talked to you about Jesus. I thought it would be funny to listen to later. daveb

Posted by: daveb on March 21, 2004 2:44 PM

As far as who can tell?


Chicago, IL

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