Customer Reviews

Thought for Food

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rare. Innovative. Mind-expanding? Smart. Exciting. Meditative. If I had to choose a bunch of All Music Guide adjectives to sum up this album, those would be them. The Books' Thought For Food is a hard album to pin down as it's electronic, and yet feels more like folk than IDM. Maybe this is what Momus was talking about? Probably not, since he was talking about folk musicians starting out with synths and making their music with those instruments as a starting point. The Books are more complicated than a simple metaphor or equation can explain.

So I'll start by saying that The Books are two men: Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong. According to a dead-on review of the record by Mark Richardson, there are four main instruments on the album: Guitar, violin, samples, and silence. Sometimes a guitar and cello will make up a bed for the samples, sometimes vice-versa. Each song is its own unique world. But throughout the whole of it, what really makes the album stunning, is the samples. Each is allowed to breath. Nothing on the album feels muddled. If Negativland is the beer, The Books are the wine. This is sampladelic music refined.

On the first track, perhaps my favorite song of the year, "Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again," there is a constantly shifting beat, as samples each struggle to get to the front. There is a contemplative and dramatic guitar line that makes its way throughout, but the clicks, glicks and beats will start and stop at a moments notice while samples of tennis matches, army generals, and a woman I recognized as "Hazel" from the NPR show Lost and Found Sound each jostle for attention but are cut off before they can say anything. It's just an impossibly profound song that doesn't come out and directly say anything. Immediately, you know The Books are up to something. The second track deals more with silence than the first, which is pretty packed. An acoustic guitar is strummed over and over to get that thick satisfying bassy sound going, and samples taken from the National Spelling Bee. A kid this time spells out the name of the song, "Read Eat Sleep," and you can audibly hear the silence and shuffling of paper that goes on when the kids are on stage standing there thinking.

"All Our Base Are Belong To Them" is a more conventional song with lots of chunky acoustic guitar that all but overwhelms the vocals. And if you pay attention you can hear Zammuto's family having a conversation during Thanksgiving, and somebody announces they're having a baby, and the family cheers and laughs. The whole album is great, but there's moments like that that really catch your attention and seem perfect and joyous. There's the moment in "Getting The Done Job" when a slow plodding glitched-up guitar suddenly jumps to life as a banjo and fiddle! Or how about when Hazel is talking over some squeekiness and the beat comes right back to where it was to interrupt her? Then there's the fuzzed-out drum beats that slap the guitar upside the head throughout "All Bad Ends All." Who ever thought that a twee sampladelic folk album could be life-affirming? Sadly, the album seems to have no sense of when it isn't welcome anymore and ends well before I wanted it to on a song that hardly works as a fitting last song for an album this magical.

It is only appropriate to start out this review with my first experience with The Books since everyone will probably remember theirs as well. After a long, or not so long [its irrelevant] day my two friends and I decided it was time for a little cool down. We went into my friend's room while she turned out all the lights and left only the TV muted on static to light the room. Then she turned on this album and we all lay there and listened. I had heard The Books before but this, for some reason, felt like the first time I was really hearing them in their avant-garde entirety. The semi-random sounds and snapshot vocal samples seared the air in a summation of life and music. `Twas grand, to say the least.
This album is really difficult to break down or sectionalize. As you listen to it, there are obvious changes of pace following the different songs, but somehow, the vein of the music always seems to remain in tact. From the first quasi-notes of "Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again" The Books seem to be reaching for a lifelike quality for their music that can really only be described by that same word: Life. This song has a straight beat that is surrounded by samples of people sort of talking through their problems. Mid-way through the song you hear an elderly lady discussing her problem with her heart conditions and some bad checks she was accused of writing. As this monologue goes on, you get drawn in until finally her voice seems to explode into nothingness and the song goes on. This type of forget-what-you-know attitude prevails with this band and particularly this album.
The record continues regardless with "All Our Base Are Belong To Them" where the listener is welcomed to the human race (ironically by an unfamiliar voice) and the band softly croons "I was born on the day that music died," a vocal testament to the sheer originality of this record. At times it does make one question what is music.
On "Motherless Bastard" a small boy is heard yelling for his mommy or daddy only to be met by a male voice informing him he has neither in a less than comforting manner. The song then continues serenely on in a fashion that almost makes one forget about the tragedy that opens the track. Fear not, though, we are quickly reminded of this terribly awkward and disheartening situation with a reprise of the clip. The pure emotion tugging power of this track is almost unnerving considering that this is probably the most up-front, straightforward track on the record.
The rest of the record continues on in a similar fashion, by the end, anointing the listener with The Books' amazing version of human experience.

9.2/10

Innovative. That's a word I haven't heard very often referring to new releases this year. I always love albums that are difficult to explain to someone that's never heard it, especially if that person listens to as much stuff as you do, giving you a wide selection for points of reference to choose from, yet still coming up short in your attempt at an accurate description. Collectively known as the Books, the duo of Paul de Jong (from New York) and Nick Zammuto (from North Carolina) have produced an album that contains some pretty off-the-wall sound samples, disturbing dialogue, and even some old-fashioned singing (huh?). All this takes place over the top of some type of music, usually very simplistic in nature, such as an acoustic guitar and a violin. While odd voice samples are nothing new, you've never heard them employed in such a way as found here. This doesn't come off completely flawless, however. Thought For Food feels a little rough around the edges. On some tracks, everything comes together beautifully. In other tracks, they slightly miss their mark. When you've got something that sounds as fresh as this, why nitpick?

A creaky old train slipped on the rails, spilled it's junked record collection, and various documentarian relics, and someone decided to provide folk guitar accompaniment.

A stretch of samplings and wrinklings, saturations and drips, The Books' Thought for Food is a loverly album dears.

Try to think of it as something ancient, meaning the near past, coupled with the presence of mind to not discount it, but to change it, to twist and frist it into a miscellany of true spirit. A brew for drinking!

Like on the song "All Our Base Belong to Them" starts "I was born on the day that music died" by a slow and low voice, there is no joy in this present that we have created, no tangible excitement, but we still make music.

We are used to the cliché of post-modernity, the neon Statue of Liberty clothed in pudding, wearing sunglasses.

Here, just because we are bringing seemingly disparate things together (sampling and guitar, quotes and a hip 1870's beat) but here, we believe in it, we accept it. We don't want to analyze it, or figure out the "symbolism" or the "gender issues," we just want to listen.

So listen, listen! Even if you have a heart condition.

I'm not at all qualified to write a review of a cd like this, but people stumbling across this have to have some idea of how great this cd is, so theyll know to buy it. First of all, pitchforkmedia.com's review of this will probably do a better job than me. Well, the music's kind of a combination between glitch, folk, and found sound. It's pieces of guitar, violin, television commercials, and random conversations all chopped up into a strange mix that really shouldn't sound as good as it does by any means. it's certainly quirky, but at the same time, it's much more mature than say, schneider TM (not that i don't love the man). if you have any interest in experimental laptop music at all, this is a must buy.

Even after having this cd for so long, it never ceases to amaze me how well the Books can compose music. It is impossible to define the Books music, there is no label that you could put on them that would satisfy. Experimental maybe, but that is just too broad. Each song emotes so much feeling, even without the use of vocals. With the exception of the samples, which have been beaten to death by others, but here they seem fresh and exciting.

"Motherless Ba***rd" begins with a man telling a child, "You have no mother or father... they left they went somewhere else." (Which is real by the way) Though strange and unsettling, it appears later on in the song with a whole different feeling to it. It doesn't seem as disturbing as it did before. Now what happened between the first time the clip appeared and the second is still a little bit of a mystery to me. But all I know is their music changed how I perceived what was said, and that in itself should say something about how much of an effect The Books music can have on you.

The other tracks on this album are equally effective and unique; the other-worldy "All Our Base Belong to Them"; the beautiful "Read, Eat, Sleep"; and "Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again" maintains as one of my favorite songs. There is something about this album that you just can't quite pin down, a quiet dignity; that is touching and profound. It's one you can just lie down and become totally taken away by. One of the best purchases I've ever made.

I'm not really sure why I love this CD so much. As far as I remember, I wasn't particularly amazed or blown away by it when I got it over a year ago, hence I let it collect dust in the back seat of my car with countless other forgotten disks within a week. A few days ago, however, I was lying awake late at night skimming through my iPod looking for something interesting, and happened once again upon The Books. I hit `play,' and never looked back.

What first greets your ear when you start this album is what can only be described as a swirling, brooding guitar pluck. The tune slowly but surely picks up urgency as the song progresses before it altogether disappears around the 3 minute mark amidst an all-out instrumental freak-out. Soon you realize that the guitar and other conventional instruments are just the beginning for this album. What The Books manage to create is a sprawling musical landscape of deep electronic beats and blips, string instruments, and some of the most unique samples you've ever heard.

The samples themselves are what really decorate the musical landscapes, dotting the rolling hills and sloping deserts with all sorts of colors and interesting objects. They range from what sounds like a grainy radio recording from WWII Great Britain to what may be a shopping cart rolling out of an elevator and crashing into a wall. Some samples are so monumental they cast their shadow across the entire song, as is the case with "Contempt," a song that slowly builds around a sample of two men talking. What makes the samples so great is that they not only sound like nothing else produced today, but they also simultaneously provoke feeling and nostalgia in a way samples almost never do; just listen to the little girl in "Motherless Bastard" and you'll know what I mean. They are also so wide in variety that you can listen to a song one time and hear a completely different song the next time.

I disagree that I am just "happy knowing that this music exists," as the last reviewer commented. I absolutely can listen to this CD over and over. Unfortunately, it kind of loses steam near the last few songs and loses some of its ambient charm. Still, there is no shame in hitting the `Restart' button; the first 9 songs are nothing short of amazing.

Many reviewers have noted that this CD might not be for everyone, and I completely agree, however I also would wholeheartedly recommend Thought For Food to someone looking for truly interesting and unique new music far outside the typical indie music spectrum. You will be pleasantly surprised, believe me.

I recently discovered The Books via a sampler CD from a magazine. I was immediately drawn by this fascinating stuff, best enjoyed, in my opinion, through headphones by a focused listener. I suppose it could be considered ambient in the Brian Eno sense that one can invest as little or as much attention to it as one wants. But I found myself fully attentive and working at hearing every little snippet. I heartily recommend this disc to those who are interested in experimental music and it's no-drone zone, y'all.

the endless spirals of complexity on this album are remiscent of works by boards of canada or up in flames by manitoba. gorgeous instrumentation; i hear new things everytime i listen to it. highly recommended.

Okay, silly exercise of triangulating between reference points nearly as obscure.

The Books is somewhere between the raw acoustic two-guys strings and percussion of Supergenerous, the eerie two-guys sampled vocals and electronics of Boards of Canada, and, um...

The vocal samples are rarely reduced to repeated snips like so many, including Boards of Canada and say Moby, do. Warmer. Doing very interesting things with recorded vocals is often the basis of a track. And the musical style has a home in a folksey sound, but ranges wider than Supergenerous's does.

Maybe that third point would be the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. The sound walks a rope bridge between composition and just stuff happening. Aleatoric.

Really nice.