The Books/ The Way Out

The Books
The Way Out
(Temporary Residence)

After five years in the wilderness, you might well choose to welcome back your listeners with an unconventional approach. For The Books, this approach means whispering subliminal messages of motivation throughout the opening track ‘Group Autogenics I’ – in the style of a self-help relaxation tape.
The US-duo have sought to take vocal samples into an art form on each track, the intonations of the voice often blending into the primal beats and handwritten melodies. For example, ‘A Cold Freezin’ Night’ makes preposterous use of a child’s voice, while kicking into a half-attempt at a threatening Aphex Twin groove.
Their most complete effort is ‘All You Need Is A Wall’, in which the protagonist is seemingly transfixed by the rumbles of shifting sounds and the vocals drip with laxness. It’s the slowing down that is perhaps most notable though, stalling the non-uniform sounds just enough to allow the listener in.
Rather than being a cohesive album, ‘The Way Out’ feels like fourteen separate parts making a collective of noise innovations; it’s music for those who’d feel at home in an art installation, or watching a monochrome reel of travelling film. The percussion often makes up for what’s lacking in the spinal column of the album: namely a keen sense of melody.
Eccentric to the last, it could be argued that The Books are being pretentiously subversive. To be honest, there’s little on offer to dispel this notion.