The Books
The Books are an American music duo, formed in New York City in 1999, consisting of guitarist and vocalist Nick Zammuto and cellist Paul de Jong. Their releases contain a combination of electronic music and folk, typically incorporating samples of obscure sounds and speech. They have released three critically-acclaimed albums on the German label Tomlab, and are currently preparing for the release of their latest studio album, The Way Out.
Zammuto and de Jong first met in New York City in 1999 as they shared the same apartment building. De Jong invited Zammuto to dinner at his apartment, where he played him some of his collection of audio and video samples, including a Shooby Taylor record. Zammuto said of their meeting that "we both kind of knew at that moment that we listened (to music) in interesting ways and had similar approaches to music." Soon after they began playing what they considered to be pop music, in comparison to their own works, under the name The Books.
The Books began working on The Way Out in late 2008. Zammuto spoke of the album in an interview in April 2009, saying they took samples from self-help and hypnotherapy cassettes, and the album's New Age themes. Asked to describe the album, Zammuto said "You're getting verrry sleepy." On April 5, 2010, the duo announced that The Way Out will be released through Temporary Residence Limited sometime in July. On April 27 Pitchfork Media began streaming the track "Beautiful People", which Zammuto described as "a three part christian harmony mixed with a sort of euro-disco-trash beat, an orchestra’s worth of sampled brass and lyrics about the twelfth root of two (my favorite irrational number), trigonometry and tangrams".
