The Books at the 9:30 Club
During their set yesterday at the 9:30 Club, Nick Zammuto, one half of The Books, introduced a song as being about the end of the world then changed his mind and said it was about conception. It was a good synopsis of the band's music — it could be anything you want it to be.
The Brooklyn band's songs are pastiches — mostly instrumental with guitar from Zammuto and electric cello from Paul de Jong, with found sounds, snippets of dialogue and the occasional percussion loop added. Not following traditional verse-chorus-verse structure, the songs are free-flowing and ambient, giving off a feeling rather than a meaning — some seemed to imbue a sense of awe about the world, aided by projected visuals, and others were more chaotic.
In concert, the duo sat on chairs below a video projection of sometimes abstract and sometimes spliced and edited clips from other videos. Even when Zammuto and de Jong were joined by a violinist and a guitarist (opener Todd Reynolds on violin and Zammuto's brother on guitar), the audience naturally focuses on the video, which almost serves as an additional instrument. The videos are usually synced with the music, such as in the impressive "8 Frame" where every eight frames of video equaled a quarter note. And unlike other bands that show videos, such as Super Furry Animals or Caribou, the Books' video is by design the most energetic performer — the musicians simply sit and make music.
The music itself relies on Zammuto's gentle guitar and de Jong's amplified and sometimes distorted cello, with sampled thumps and bleeps from hard to discern sources over and around the string instruments. The few times the beats became more regular the crowd started to nod, but in general the percussion was integrated into the songs. A song or two stepped towards jam band territory, but never quite got there.
Zammuto said during the show that many of the videos were taken from dollar bins at thrift stores around the country, resulting in bits of a baseball drill video, a charismatic church service, home movies, nature videos, and English language instruction. Some parts of the soundtracks from the videos were included into the songs, like the occasional word, and sometimes the images on the screen served as punchlines or counterpoints to the lyrics of the songs. And some were just funny, like an old film of a man making sounds with his hands.
The band is touring in support of their new DVD, "Playall," which is only available on their website or at shows, but the shipment didn't make it to the 9:30 Club. The disc includes many of the songs and videos from the show, as well as some new ones.
Photo by Andrew Wiseman