BLOWIN' INDIE WIND

Author: RICHARD LAWLESS

Simply stated, the Books sound like nothing that came before or after them. You could certainly classify them in a bland, vague sub-genre if you really had to, but this would do their sheer originality a painful injustice. Describing their music proves to be an admittedly difficult task, because of its unique collage of samples, found sounds and classical-manipulated-by-laptop instrumentation. But with my trusted list of adjectives accumulated over years of Word-a-Day calendars, I will attempt to describe the Books, nonetheless.

For all of you competitive, school-pride folk, I should note that one half of the duo that comprise the Books is a Williams graduate. Lest us Midd-kids feel inferior, we must not forget Middlebury's own contribution to the indie world, Oneida, who are apparently banned forever from here for some pyrotechnic mishap back in the '90s in McCullough. Details are hazy at best. I also heard that one of the guys from Soul Coughing was roommates with someone who went here once. Awesome.

Nick Zammuto, the Williams grad, is complemented by Netherlands native and current New York resident Paul de Jong. Zammuto handles most of the guitar work for the Books, which takes its cues more from free-improvisation and avant-garde recordings than any sort of rock music, though you could call John Cale's guitar improvisations with the Velvet Underground one direct influence. But Zammuto's guitar work includes much more of a worldly influence as well, incorporating Flamenco tones and rhythms as well as other distinctly Eastern textures into his playing, melding them all together into a very unique and unclassifiable style.

De Jong handles the cello duties for the group, which play a large role in giving the songs an avant-garde leaning. At one moment, cellos hum and purr softly in the background, and the next they rise to a feverish, atonal cacophony, which is quite characteristic of the Books' music overall. At moments, it can sound almost like pop music, especially on "The Lemon of Pink," their second album, which incorporates original vocals from Zammuto and violinist/banjoist Anne Doerner. Yet at other times, the music is a hectic blur of vocal samples from old records, atonal screeching strings and bits and pieces of cut-up guitar and string samples, all filtered through Zammuto and de Jong's laptop. The computer manipulation gives the Books a completely modern edge,.

"The Lemon of Pink" opens with the title track, beginning with a repeated piano and upright bass riff supplemented by floating segments of improvised violin lines, as a sample of a woman's voice repeating the song's name is repeated. Multiple plucked banjos soon join the mix, before Zammuto's acoustic guitar begins playing a lovely melodic ditty. Sample voices of old-timey country singers join the mix next, as well as those of footsteps walking through gravel, and what sounds like a rustling of papers. Doerner's voice begins singing as the music is streamlined down to plucked cello and banjo. This is one of the sweetest, most accessible moments on the album.

Zammuto - who sounds remarkably like Badly Drawn Boy's Damon Gough - sings on one of the album's later tracks, "The Future, Wouldn't That Be Nice," which combines arrhythmic samples of handclaps with harmonized cellos and sliced up samples of audience laugh-tracks from sitcoms. The music borders on the Dirty Three at times with the beautiful, slow string instrumentation, but the chaotic sampling of found rhythms and sounds puts the Books in a class by themselves. "The Lemon of Pink" offers more accessible and quasi-pop moments than the Books' debut album, "Thought for Food," though both are excellent examples of just how far pop music can be pushed, and sufficient evidence to refute the cynical allegation that there are no new ideas in music.