The Books | The Way Out

Most Likely To: snag a few new fans.

It’s been five years since Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong, better known as experimental duo The Books, released their last record, but The Way Out, the band’s fourth full-length is finally here. In a world where commercial music is dominated by vacuous performers like Ke$ha and Katy Perry, it would be absurd to accuse The Books of selling out, but The Way Out is undeniably more accessible than its predecessors. Certainly this will be cause for disappointment among longtime fans of the band, many of whom prefer to wade their way through the band’s earlier, anchorless oeuvre.

The Way Out maps out directions (showing us the way out, perhaps?) instead of using samples to create an audio labyrinth of lightly layered sounds that forced the listener navigate through a thought stream of their own making, as they did on their two earliest releases, Thought For Food (2002) and The Lemon of Pink (2003). Because it is more of a guided tour of The Books’ landscape, The Way Out is likely to appeal to those who found the band’s earlier work, which was so beloved by critics, to be a bit too remote. The Way Out is The Books for the concrete thinkers among us, who prefer “The Story of Hip-Hop” to the subtler meandering of The Lemon of Pink.

“Group Autogenics I” employs samples from old self-help records, setting the tone for the record. Spoken word samples are nothing new for The Books, but the contrast between the squeaky clean tone of the voice and what it says ramp up the absurdity. An audio trick splices “Your body is now a glass container / You can smell the orange-colored liquid.” The tautological advice “I am calm and calm / I am relaxed and relaxed” creates a spoof of traditional relaxation training.

On The Way Out, perhaps more than on any other record, The Books strive to create a groove. The vocals on “I Didn’t Know That” are chopped into percussive units that compliment the song’s bass line, while drum interludes punctuate the repetitive spoken word phrases on “A Cold Freezin’ Night.” “I Am Who I Am” is almost dance floor ready while “Beautiful People” and “Thirty Incoming” create rhythm from large choral sections of song. These obvious rhythmic passages give the casual listener an entry into The Books’ work that was not previously available, and mark new territory for the band.

The Books deserve credit for not taking themselves too seriously on The Way Out. The LP version comes with pages of stickers, so you can decorate your own record cover. Dismiss it as cutesy, or consider it the personification of “zakka,” the Japanese concept of playfully improving everyday life through colorful, whimsical, well-designed items. It’s easy to argue against the necessity of The Way Out, just as it’s easy to dismiss ordering a Shinzi Katoh bento box directly from Japan, but to survive the human journey, you really need both.