Get 'Lost' with the Books

"Revolution 9," John Lennon's noise experiment from the Beatles' White Album, was different than anything that had come before it. Thirty-five years later the Books' third album, Lost and Safe, expands on the landscape created by "Revolution 9." It's more listenable and a full-length album.\nThe American/Dutch duo of Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong improvise with traditional string instruments and their extensive collection of found sound samples. The result: an electro-acoustic collage of folk, baroque and indie rock that uses familiar sounds in an unfamiliar way.\nOn 2003's The Lemon of Pink, East Coast wanderer Anne Doerner's voice penetrates that album's aleatoric, minimalist scrambling of Appalachian and Cajun folk as prettily as ever -- so much that I would never want to see a picture of her because I don't believe it could live up to that voice. At times, Lemon is as reflective and serene as a still night with waves lapping on the beach. Other times the schizophrenic cut-and-pasted space-time sequences are as ruffled as Seinfeld's "puffy" shirt.\nStill, on Lost the group one-ups itself by letting de Jong's voice become the 'vocal' point. The cellist's distorted voice evokes Sigur Rós' Jon Por Birgisson. The lyrics are socially and psychologically conscious, delivering Built to Spill-esque bipolar similes indicating both positive and negative values, at times also seeming to give words to the noises being produced.\nLost is weird from the start. Each song sounds like a book on tape with a beat behind it. "A Little Longing Goes a Long Way" reminds me of the glacial burr migrations of Sigur Rós interspersed with the atmospherically close, homogenized electronica of Air, though it's uniquely not. "Be Good to Them Always" sounds simultaneously like ancient and apocalyptical post-rock, with interjections of dissonant orchestral outbursts disbursed next to manipulated yet sincerely urgent news clip sound bites and dialogue. Full of unbridled, merry-go-round enthusiasm, "Vogt Dig for Kloppervok" is a human melody fighting at once through chaos and progress. "An Animated Description of Mr. Maps" utilizes Blue-Man-Group-ian tribal pipes cracking. As for the rest, taut string work is heard above elements of timbre, vinyl static and birds crowing, never quite soaring to a peak.\nWith more moments of peaceful, illogical fluency, Lemon remains my favorite Books effort to date, but Lost grows on me with every listen. In this independent duo's music, as the album title suggests, one can lose themselves and at the same time feel nevertheless surely protected. Admittedly, the musically chaotic Lost is not for everyone, but it is truly innovative. And if it suits you, the Books make for especially good reading music.