Review: The Books | The Way Out

While it doesn't sound the way we had guessed it would, experimental folk copy-pasters The Books' latest surreal set The Way Out is the act's most emotionally direct work yet. It has been five years since the itinerant duo released its beautiful third full length Lost And Safe, but the career caesura does not appear to have affected its approach to creating captivating, inscrutable music. This despite the fact that the poignant, spine-tingling and almost sample-free closing cut on Lost And Safe was a relatively conventional ballad, which we had assumed was a harbinger of things to come from the band. We were wrong. Instead, The Way Out finds The Books retrenched in its familiar mesh of absurd found sounds, field recordings, acoustic instruments, beats and occasionally spiritual lyrics.

It took seeing The Books live (in 2005, as referenced in our review of Lost And Safe here) for us to realize how central humor is to its music. We had previously recognized the quirk, but the visuals the augmented duo used to accompany its mesmerizing, extended musical koans in a live setting made plain that The Books are as much amused by life as they are amazed by it. Perhaps because of that experience we find The Way Out to be the most humorous of The Books' four iconoclastic full lengths; one listen to the hilarious amalgamation of kids goofin' called "A Cold Freezin' Night" bears this out. But it's not just the humor that is more potent: "I Am Who I Am" is stunning in its cold aggression (well, relative aggression). While we recognize that The Books are satirizing the quasi-dictatorial/actually kind of pathetic declarations that are sampled, the song is uncharacteristically dark, but thrillingly so. "I Am Who I Am" features a male voice emphatically ranting over a jungle-ish rhythm track and something like electric bassoon drones; the result sounds like something created by Pailhead, the amazing '80s collaboration between Fugazi fronter Ian Mackaye and Ministry's Al Jourgenson.

We found a record store/label that has posted samples from each song on The Way Out to Soundcloud, and so we've embedded the series of samples below. Please support The Books and pick up this very special record July 20 (tomorrow) when it is released. Or, of course, you can buy the thing from the duo's new label, Temporary Residence, right here. The Books have booked an uncharacteristically long (we think) strand of tour dates to support the release of The Way Out, and all the dates we are aware of as of this writing are posted below. Boston-area readers should make special note of The Books' appearances at Wilco's Solid Sound Festival next month and at The Somerville Theater in October.


[pre-order The Way Out from Temporary Residence Ltd. right here]

The Books: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

08.13 -- Solid Sound Festival -- North Adams, MA
09.04 -- ATP Music Festival -- Monticello, NY
09.29 -- The Trocadero -- Philadelphia, PA
09.30 -- 9:30 Club -- Washington, DC
10.01 -- Sheafer Theater -- Durham, NC
10.03 -- Variety Playhouse -- Atlanta, GA
10.04 -- Square Room -- Knoxville, TN
10.05 -- Jefferson Theater -- Charlottesville, VA
10.21 -- Somerville Theater -- Somerville, MA
10.22 -- Pearl Street -- Northampton, MA
10.23 -- Cabaret Mile End -- Montreal, QC
10.24 -- Capitol Music Hall -- Ottawa, ON
10.25 -- The Mod Club -- Toronto, ON
10.26 -- Crofoot Ballroom -- Pontiac, MI
10.27 -- Ladies Literary Club -- Grand Rapids, MI
10.29 -- Vic Theater -- Chicago, IL
10.30 -- Cedar Cultural Center -- Minneapolis, MN
10.30 -- Cedar Cultural Center -- Minneapolis, MN
11.13 -- Zankel Hall -- New York, NY
11.30 -- Palace of Fine Arts -- San Francisco, CA
12.03 -- Aladdin Theater -- Portland, OR
12.04 -- Moore Theatre -- Seattle, WA
12.05 -- Vogue Theater -- Vancouver, BC

Review: "Metal Machine Music -- Nine Inch Nails And The Industrial..."

Let's get the amusing part out of the way, because -- really -- there is little amusing to be said about the powerfully negative and defiantly humorless music of Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails. So: it is funny that in the archival interview footage in "Metal Machine Music: Nine Inch Nails And The Industrial Uprising" depicting Mr. Reznor at the turn of the 1990s, the visionary artist looks and speaks a lot like the character "Jess" from the now defunct, wordy tele-dramedy "Gilmore Girls."

Metal Machine Music, of course, is the title of Lou Reed's experimental noise record from 1973 that this new documentary pegs as the genesis of what would shortly thereafter -- through no small effort by Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and Einsturzende Neubaten among others -- become Industrial music. But we have to fast-forward about 17 years from then to the time when we were just of driving age in the U.S., and when acts including Nine Inch Nails and Ministry were splashing huge into the underground (and to a lesser extent into the mainstream on the back of the miraculous Lollapalooza festival masterminded by Jane's Addiction's Perry Farrel and a nice fellow named Marc Geiger), before the movement began to have impact outside of its insular scene.

Between 1988 and 1990 things were happening in the American underground, and many of these things -- electro, hardcore, house, goth, techno and even hip-hop to a certain extent -- started to assume collective sonic signifiers. As a result, we can attest to the fact that at the time youthful and disaffected East Coast suburbanites patrolled the four-lanes in cars booming Doo Doo Brown (!!!!), Revolting Cocks, Lords Of Acid, Public Enemy and so forth. Nowadays Industrial music has finite connotations of canned beats and metal guitars, a perception firmed up by the success of Nine Inch Nails and Ministry and the albums that made them famous. But, as we stated above, at the dawn of the '90s there seemed to be a shared aesthetic forming around certain disparate sounds and scenes. The tag "Industrial" became something of a catch-all to describe the lot of this, just as previously "hardcore" seemed the most easy way to explain the underground to people who didn't know The Cure from Stormtroopers Of Death. And so, roughly between the September 1989 release of the debut Nine Inch Nails single "Down In It" and the 1991 release of Ministry's earth-shaking and triumphant single "Jesus Built My Hotrod," it seemed like the future of music was absolutely Industrial.

Of course, things didn't exactly turn out that way. The story is tired, so we won't detail how the release of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Nevermind re-calibrated reality. But needless to say, all of sudden instead of talking about the Chicago scene and Wax Trax, everyone began talking about Seattle and Sub Pop. And while Nine Inch Nails and Ministry rode the wave of the newly christened Alternative scene and benefitted from the temporary enthusiastic embrace of the underground by the overground, Industrial music did not transform popular music wholesale. "Metal Machine Music" curiously chooses to begin at what, at the time, seemed like the end of the story: Nine Inch Nails' mud-encrusted performance at the cynically commercialized re-hashing of Woodstock in 1994 (too predictably, NME reported late yesterday/early today that a 40th anniversary cash-grab is a possibility). The narrator of "Metal Machine Music" states that it is here that Industrial was thrust into the mainstream. In our opinion this performance is a eulogy for the style. While the Woodstock '94 appearance may or may not be the zenith of Nine Inch Nails' popularity with mainstream music fans -- this is questionable in light of the renaissance Reznor has been experiencing creatively since 2005, not to mention Reznor's consistent ability to top album charts (The Downward Spiral debuted at No. 2; The Fragile at No. 1 -- even so it seems appropriate to insert here the narrator's summarizing, DVD-ending quote: "In many ways, Nine Inch Nails represent the end of Industrial music." Critic Tom Udo agrees: "By the mid-'90s, Industrial was more or less washed up."

"Metal Machine Music" at first seems overly reliant on the musings of music critics including the always likable Ned Raggett. But the video succeeds in providing a watchable and thorough investigation of Nine Inch Nails and Reznor without actually providing us with Reznor himself (except via a smattering of archival interviews) to opine on the proceedings. Fortunately, there is extensive interview footage with longtime Reznor collaborator Chris Vrenna, who offers enough in the way of details and insight to make the DVD more credible than a bull session among the various critics assembled. Indeed, Mr. Vrenna is a very useful and informative proxy that is able to relay his impressions of Reznor's mindset at certain times. Reznor's influences and early history as a new waver, epic struggles with TVT Records and personal demons are all given ample airing as the narrator, critics, Vrenna and a small number of additional scene peers walk viewers through a single by single by EP by album history of Nine Inch Nails.

With Reznor's recent announcement of a possible end to Nine Inch Nails after a summer tour with Jane's Addiction, "Metal Machine Music" offers a tidy assessment of Reznor's band and his importance to contemporary popular music. Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I-IV, released last April to the Internet and through special promotions directly to fans, is perhaps Reznor's most intriguing work to date, and his likely post-Nine Inch Nails output is sure to be exciting. Shedding the Nine Inch Nails name may signal that Reznor's greatest experimentation has yet to be realized and recorded. MVD Video Distribution releases "Metal Machine Music" April 7, and you can pre-order the DVD right here.

Nine Inch Nails -- "1,000,000" -- The Slip
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[download all of The Slip from nin.com right here]
[by commercially available Nine Inch Nails releases from Newbury Comics right here]

Today's Hotness: Silversun Pickups, The Radishes, The Clash

>> For reasons we have difficulty articulating we've never been completely on board with L.A.-based indie rock foursome Silversun Pickups -- maybe it's that we think they sound a little too commercial in places, maybe it's that we can't put our finger on what if anything makes the band unique. We certainly like singer Brian Aubert's Lindsey Buckhingham-esque singing voice, and the songs can rock and even have a dreamy Smashing Pumpkins quality at times. Anyway, that said, we've loved the two videos of theirs we've seen, including the most recent Joaquin Phoenix-directed clip for "Little Lover's So Polite," which right now you can only view at the Dangerbird Records web site here. Interestingly (well, to us), both videos feature unexpected/unexplained occurrences of people flying. We dig that. The other video was for the track "Kissing Families" and you can watch it at the YouTube right here. Silversun Pickups released its debut Carnavas in 2006.

>> Remember The Radishes? We wrote about their song "Hook Me Up" here in November. That wasn't so long ago, right? Anyway, the band is about to issue an EP called Strychnine April 15. More exciting is that this is the first Radishes release to include the playing of former Ministry/Scratch Acid/Rapeman drummer Rey Washam and former Ministry/Revolting Cocks bassist Paul Barker. To top it off, the legendary MC-5's Wayne Kramer makes an appearance as well. That's a lot of rock. And it sounds like a downloadable version of Strychnine will be given away for free even prior to that date. We'll keep you posted. Also keep your eyes peeled for a new video for "Hook Me Up," which we described variously in our review linked supra as a fist-banger, hip-shaker, et cetera. Here's the title track from Good Machine.

The Radishes -- "Good Machine" -- Good Machine
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[buy Good Machine from CDBaby right here]

>> Last night PBS stations around the U.S.A. premiered the forthcoming The Clash DVD "The Clash: Revolution Rock." The disc will be in stores April 15 and you can already pre-order it from Amazon.com here. As the owner of several previously issued Clash DVDs we put the question to our local SonyBMG press fellow: Any idea how this stacks up compared to "The Essential Clash," "Westway To The World" and "The Last Testament," some of which were also directed by Don Letts, who has directed "The Clash: Revolution Rock"? Well, the word is that the DVD includes a lot of never-before-seen bootleg footage. So if you insist you've already spent all your going to spend on Clash DVDs in your lifetime, you will be missing out somewhat. That said, PBS has got your back, although the version it is airing is edited, plus it is airing as part of a pledge drive, which means every 15 minutes or so someone will be coming on the telly and laying on the guilt. So maybe pre-ordering from Amazon isn't such a bad idea after all? For full listings of when your PBS affiliate will be airing "The Clash: Revolution Rock," hit this link. And to view a trailer for the film, this link will reveal it to you.

How The Radishes Get Their Cleaning Done: With Rock

The Radishes. They've seen the end of the world and they're not impressed. They also nestled an awesome, hip-shaking fist-banger deep into their recently self-released record Good Machine. Observant readers will recall that Boston trio Pending Disappointment also tried to hide a great song from us by putting it near the end of their record, which we wrote about below. But you guys can't hide the rock from us. Time for some Wikipedia-stylee disambiguation: The Radishes are not Radish, Ben Kweller's '90s grunge vehicle, but rather an amped-up, garagey quartet whose primary songwriter has an eye-catching last name for indie rock fans (although we expect there is no relation between The Radishes' Paul Stinson and The Replacements' Stinson brothers). Those in search of some pedigree in the band need look no further than bassist Paul Barker, whose name astute fans will know from Mr. Barker's work with Ministry and Revolting Cocks. Barker doesn't play on Good Machine, but he and former Ministry/Scratch Acid/Rapeman drummer Rey Washam apparently play on a forthcoming EP.

Since we're name-dropping some bygone acts we might as well insert here that The Radishes were the first band to play the legendary San Francisco hardcore venue Mabuhay Gardens when it re-opened in September. But let's focus. We're here to tell you about "Hook Me Up," which blasts out of the gate with straight snare banging and tons of swagger. The magic of this song is that it's stripped to the bare essentials and paced for a the dramatic conclusion of a hipster dance-a-thon. The band was cool enough to allow us to offer the track as an MP3. Download "Hook Me Up" now so you can crank it when you crack those first beers tomorrow night. You'll thank us later. The Radishes released Good Machine Oct. 16.

The Radishes -- "Hook Me Up" -- Good Machine
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[buy Good Machine from CD Baby right here]

The Radishes: Interwebses | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr