Sensual Gratification

The Books, a two person electronic/indie band consisting of Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong, played at The Old Town School of Folk here in Chicago April 28, 2007. My boyfriend and I attended and were seated in the balcony which, if you've ever been to TOTSF, you know it's extremely close to the stage since the place can't seat more than 100 or so people. The close quarters and beautiful design of the theater made for an intimate experience which was reminiscent of an 'open mic night' at a classy lounge or cozy cafe.

It is, however, impossible to talk about The Books as simply another electronic/indie band. Their concert, which was more like an exhibit of new media, consisted of a 30 minute presentation by Richard Remsberg about his collection of photographs appropriately titled Common Pictures, a series of simply made (yet impressive) videos, an acoustic and electric guitar, a bare bones electric bass, a skeleton cello and a sampler.

The slide show by Remsberg, accompanied by bits of music and excerpts from various texts set the mood for the seemingly nostalgic theme of the show. The pictures were mostly black and white snap shots of familiars much like you would imagine discovering in your grandparent's attic. While he flipped from frame to frame he explained his own interest in the particular images which in turn ignited mine.

Speaking about the way he had stumbled upon a few of these images and found a particular beauty in their composition, the presentation was designed with couplings of images which seemed to play off of each other's compositions. I found this mini-lecture an appropriate introduction to the musical compositions of The Books since it often seems that their songs are composed in much the same manner.

Like the photographs, the voice samples which are everyday sounds from sources like advertising or instructional audio are set in juxtaposition against one another to create variations of meaning and obscure the content. There is a sort of poetry to their songs' construction one that recalls feelings of nostalgia and ethereal visions of human nature.

This is why I wasn’t at all surprised to find that the videos projected behind the band played an integral part in the sensual gratification of the show – they were fundamentally connected to the music through use of the video clips that matched up with the audio information and/or the seconds of frame to match the time signature of the musical composition.

No. The Books are not just another electronic/indie band but a couple of multi-dimensional artists with sights beyond a single medium and the poise to transcend the separation between a discipline and its discourse. The contextualization of each element within the entire exhibit stirred a conversation about what is contained in the expectations of a concert and changes the reason why one is attending the concert.

I highly recommend attending one of their shows – if you can get tickets since they usually book small venues – but at the very least peruse their website (www.thebooksmusic.com) which is filled with old photographs, excerpts from the Tao de Ching in three languages and various interactive tidbits which augment songs from their albums. You’ll be surprised at how satisfying an experience the site is and that goes doubly so for their live show.