Review: The Books – The Way Out
The Books - The Way Out (2010) [Temporary Residence] // Grade: B
The Books’ Nick Zammuto has a favorite irrational number. Twelfth root of two. It’s a music theory thing, this algebraic situation thematically responsible for the flickering electro-folk of “Beautiful People”, and the fact that Zammuto can pinpoint it directly—and do so well enough to dub it favorite—speaks tomes about the collagist duo: they approach music like scientists, mathematicians. Like archeologists. Zammuto and partner Paul de Jong unearth facts and figures, forge songs from the forgotten discourse of numbers, dates and New Age self-help tapes. And maybe they’re nerds about it, maybe, but maybe that’s the only way; Matmos are nerds too, you know.
Not that any of that matters. Since 2002′s Thoughts For Food, Zammuto and de Jong have presented themselves solely as makers of albums; two pretty normal guys stitching together found samples and acoustic harmonies—all manner of cello, guitar, far-out vocals—into songs that shouldn’t make sense but then, out of nowhere, make perfect sense. And if you were ever able to see the seams, finger the stitching or at least suspect it, The Way Out mediates all that. This fourth album (and first since 2006) is the smoothest of the lot, built from a pile of collected Talkboy tapes and Gandhi bytes, some I’m Okay, You’re Okay recorded meditation. Tracks sweep from cartoonish knocks and Bladerunner stutters (“A Cold Freezin’ Night”, feat. aforementioned kid’s Talkboy) to fuzzy arpeggios growling on a dime (“I Am Who I Am”) and the haunted acoustic tracks quietly punctuating the thing: “All You Need Is A Wall” and “We Bought The Flood” are beautiful in the way respite is beautiful. A break from so much clatter.
But even this album, this best of The Books’ best, doesn’t channel much in the way of spontaneity. You get the sense that everything here is air-tight and controlled, that every click and clack, every staticky sample and slide guitar, was meticulously considered, then mapped out. Favorite numbers, remember? And that’s not qualitatively a bad thing, but it is a thing; if you’ve never cottoned much to the science of sound, chances are you’ll struggle with 35% of this album—comparable, in all fairness, to the 60% you would’ve struggled with on albums past. But then, if that’s the case, you’re probably not paying attention to The Books anyway. However smooth and (comparably) visceral, The Way Out is still music for sound nerds. Witty music for sound nerds, fun and sometimes gorgeous music for sounds nerds, but…you know, the facts remain.
