myspace.com/thebooksmusicpage

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. With a lot of favorable word of mouth and critical buzz from the first two records, the Books relocated again in winter of 2004 and recorded in an old Victorian home in North Adams, MA. With the release of Lost and Safe in April of 2005, the Books prepared to tour with their unique blend of samples and acoustic music.The band is currently recording their latest album; tentatively scheduled for a 2009 release.

“...in every aspect, from the what is surely the best production heard on any album this year to the most intricate subtleties of the compositions themselves, The Books, The Lemon of Pink strides confidently forward, not content to simply be musique-concrete background noise, but to create a remarkable listening experience, and it succeeds. Without question, it succeeds.” – Pitchfork (#2 record of 2003!)

The music is similarly unknowable, in the sense that it's difficult to classify. Musicians famously hate to be 'put into a box'; well, if more bands sounded quite as original as The Books, the practice would likely cease. If this record is the product of any sort of 'scene,' it's not one I've heard of. Thought for Food is going to sit comfortably in my collection in its own little category, a small world unto itself. - Pitchfork