Review: The Books - Lost And Safe (or) analog boy in a digital world

Posted on 12 January 2006 | No Comments

Filed Under: Album Reviews, Electronic

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Yesterday afternoon I listened to the latest album from The Books, Lost And Safe. It is all that has been playing on my iPod since then. It is a beautiful folktronica mess that is much more accessible and listenable than their previous work. Rather than a free-form collage of found sounds, Lost And Safe is more song-oriented and uses more acoustic instrumental sounds. It is not as experimental and doesn’t rely as heavily on sampled material as The Lemon Of Pink, but still has a very playful spirit to it. Moka was definitely onto something in calling this the best album of 2005. It is damn good.

2005 also saw The Books collaborate with Prefuse 73 as he remixed/reworked their sounds into the Prefuse 73 Reads The Books EP. It is exactly the sort of avant-folk with huge post hip-hop beats you would expect it to be.

Lost And Safe is out now on the great German label Tomlab and the Prefuse EP is available on Warp.

MP3 | The Books – Smells Like Content Lost And Safe
MP3 | The Books – An Owl With Knees Lost And Safe
MP3 | Prefuse 73 – Pagina Dos Prefuse 73 Reads The Books EP