KCRW’s Music Librarian receives upwards of 100 albums a day for airwaves consideration. You can tell from the piles that tower above where he sits – that they are placed into stacks of To Listen. No. and Maybe. All Yeses seem to get cataloged in the stacks fairly immediately… The man has an admirably efficient process for listening to music and identifying it as something that will fit KCRW. So I’ve been sneaking in lately and getting my fill of what he has to say about that. He’s my fav.

The other day he swings by and drops a mix of singles on my desk. He makes a couple a month for the DJs to give them a taste of the recent additions to the library. Flattered to get my own copy, I put the CD in immediately and got to work on the 20 tracks.

Stopped dead by track 5 at The Books and then begin again and begin again and begin again….!

The Books – Beautiful People

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I ran down to the library to see if the full album, The Way Out, existed yet. Perhaps the realization will be better than the anticipation.

Next: downloaded the discography, fairly, but not yet completely soaked in the sounds of the former albums over some dinner. Did some reading (Pitchfork’s Mark Richardson has taught me that The Books’ previous albums would’ve been right at home in my velcro sun visor cd case back in 03 alongside Modest Mouse & Bonnie Prince Billy).

Perhaps what I’ve come to appreciate about The Books in my thus brief exposure, is that an intelligent and perhaps somewhat eccentric, if not even peculiar approach to sampling and sound, is just what I can get down with at this point in my music discovery. Just as Frank mentioned in the Baths post….. I feel like its important music. Best discovery of all of this, its been right there under the surface for quite some time and new material is on its way.

Traversing through the build and layering of electronic cacophony toward samples from obscure movie dialog, with the injection of live cello, banjo and vocals, only to arrive so many times to shake my head “what was that they just said, wait rewind – I KNOW what that means”. I’ve arrived at pure fascination with the intelligent design of this band’s delivery.

Below a few of the tracks from the older albums that have given me a shiver for one reason or another. I listened to “You’ll Never Be Alone” a couple of times in a row, giggling at the absurd treatment of numbers and message. I’m not sure that this sound is for everyone, but I think I would dork out with these dudes for hours on end if given the opportunity.

The Books – Fralite

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The Books – Tokyo

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The Books – You’ll Never Be Alone

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The Books were on the Dark Was the Night compilation w/ Jose Gonzalez – introduced to us here on the Muffin. Thanks B. We love some Swedes!

The Books featuring Jose Gonzalez Cello Song (Nick Drake Cover)

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Lastly!

Here’s another recently leaked track from the upcoming album – The Way Out. Read about it on The Books Tumblr Blog.

The Books – Cold Freezin’ Night

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