Like many instrumentalists have done during the pandemic, Kyle Burk found himself taking his guitar off its stand more frequently over the past 18 months. The co-owner of Capitol Hill Books always dabbled in songwriting; but it wasn’t until his popular independent shop — known for its rare texts and cheeky tweets — shifted to private appointments only in March 2020 that Burk decided it was time to focus on recording his tracks.

“The bookstore was closed, so I just hauled a bunch of gear over there,” says Burk, 44. “The books are pretty good at absorbing loud guitar sounds.”

Burk’s five-track album, recorded in spurts over the past year, is out now on Bandcamp and Burk’s website (and soon, it will be on Spotify and Apple Music, he says). Burk recorded under the moniker The Failed Poets and titled the record Death of the Novel — inspired by the notion that modern music is seeing the “death of the album.”

Some news!
When our bookstore was closed to the public for a year at the start of the pandemic we used it to record an album, just in case you needed a few songs about books & booksellers. It’s now available: https://t.co/i5LPUkwdMY

— Capitol Hill Books (@chbooksdc) January 3, 2022

Burk provided all the vocals and played all the instruments on the project, which he fittingly recorded in the “poetry” and “mystery” sections on the second floor of the bookstore. (He jokes that co-owner Aaron Beckwith is in the background playing the triangle, but he turned that track down in the final mix.)

No surprise — most of the project’s material is about books and booksellers. “In some ways, I feel like I kind of made these songs for ‘book Twitter,'” Burk says, referring to the platform where CHB has gained a bit of a cult following. So goes the lead song, “Paperbacks & Pills:”

Yeah, I read those books you left by Marx and Fred Engels
I don’t understand them, but they look good on my shelves
I guess now you know I’m not so intellectual after all
Oh, at all. But I do all right.

The album was mixed at nearby Capitol Hill studio Ivakota, and carries an open-chord, indie-rock sound reminiscent of The Strokes, particularly on upbeat tracks like “Autofiction” and even the failed romance-themed “Faded Pink Cardigan.”

The album captures the tongue-in-cheek, playful ethos of the bookstore itself, Burk says. He recorded more melancholic songs than these, but curated his recordings down to five songs he thinks will help people get through these hard times.

Burk says he drew inspiration from the do-it-yourself attitude of D.C.’s legendary punk bands and rap artists who “teach themselves everything and just do it.” He’s even gotten an inquiry from someone interested in recording their own music at the shop — a request he hopes won’t be possible to fulfill, as recording is only possible when the store is closed for business due to COVID protocols. He does, however, hope to perform his music at the shop when it’s safe to do so.

Burk plans to release physical copies, eventually. For now, listeners can purchase a digital copy on Bandcamp at a price of their choosing.