The Way Out

The Books | Format: MP3 Download

Product Details

• Label: Temporary Residence Ltd.
• Copyright: Copyright 2010 Temporary Residence Ltd.
• Total Length: 50:07
• Genres:
• ASIN: B003U9S3C0
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #34,044 Paid in MP3 Albums (See Top 100 Paid in MP3 Albums)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Experimental Yet Accessible, July 20, 2010

By 

Kristopher Bell (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Way Out (MP3 Download)

"The Way Out" is another solid outing and incremental step forward for the fun, experimental duo The Books.

Built around found audio snippets of adults and children, "The Way Out" playfully dissects these anonymous guests' words, recontextualizing them to sometimes humorous, sometimes profound effect. And as always the music itself is interesting and provocative. These are skilled musicians, eschewing typical arrangements, signatures, and beats for explorations of texture and rhythm.

Highlights on the album for me include: "A Cold Freezin' Night" - a frenetic, bass-and-rhythm-driven soundtrack to the murderous threats of a group of children; "Beautiful People," a harmonious chant-like mathematical dream (I'm not sure I understand the subject matter, but what a trippy song!); and "All You Need is a Wall," which finds the group coming close to putting together a conventionally structured folk song (and they can sing!).

For those who know The Books, there's lots to love and enjoy about this album. It will feel familiar from the start in that its a natural, albeit slight, evolution (and then, only really in that sense that they use their own voices a bit more and push into some heretofore unexplored genres).

For those new to The Books, this album is as good a jumping off point as any. And although fans often say "The Books" and "experimental" in the same breath, don't be scared by the label. Yes, its different cup of tea, but its a lovely sip nonetheless.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Long awaited and no let down here, July 23, 2010

By 

Alex - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Way Out (MP3 Download)

The Books have certainly progressed in the interim between albums. These songs match their "found" sounds with instrumentation in new ways, but they still retain the same magic of their first two albums.

While this is a great album to add to your collection, I would disagree with the review that recommends this as a first album to get from The Books. For your first albums I would suggest "The Lemon of Pink" and then "Thought for Food". Both superlative. Head to their main site "the books music [dot] com" to hear full previews.

Also, don't forget The Books' collaboration with Prefuse 73 -- "Prefuse 73 Reads The Books" Talk about catching lightning in a bottle - it is a perfect alloy of their styles.

BTW, if you have a chance to see The Books live, it is an event not to be missed. They synch'd a videos with their songs and added new layers of rhythm to some of their best songs.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Still The Books, but much weaker than previous offerings, September 13, 2010

By 

Derek Young (Baltimore) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Way Out (MP3 Download)

Beyond the odd movie and sound samples, The Books have created high quality electronic/collage music on their previous three albums. Their effective use of cello, guitar, and chopped up audio covered an aspect of their music that was subtle to the point that it was easy to overlook unless someone pointed it out -- their lack of drum programming. Nick Zammuto's history with chopping samples to create pseudo-percussion helped put the previous The Books albums in a unique niche.

By far the introduction of traditional drums is the biggest change in The Way Out, and sadly it shows that they don't have experience doing drum programming (they have admitted as such in interviews). Two tracks include a basic house beat (c'mon guys) and others include what sounds like General MIDI drums. One other aspect that's sorely missing is the great sense of space, or openness, prevalent on previous albums, replaced instead with what seems to pass muster as simple singer/songwriter tracks. Look, I understand that musicians like expanding their horizons and doing new things, but another aspect of good musicianship is recognizing when you're making a dud.

There are some decent tracks on the album, and overall the album is cohesive, but cohesively mediocre. Despite the long hiatus, I'm not very excited about this album. Oh well.