Apology For Whoring This Space Out

"The remaining nine tracks on this 15-minute release are mostly collages, with only hints of instrumentation added throughout. "Meditation Outtakes" plucks all occurrences of the word "meditation" from a speech and lays them end-to-end, demonstrating the way meaning changes with minute changes in inflection. "Of the Word God" uses the same technique with "god," sourcing this time from a woman preacher's sermon. You can follow the story she presents through the emphasis on this single word, beginning quietly and moving steadily toward a histrionic scream. Even though they consist mostly of voices removed from their original context and carefully edited, these odds and ends actually demonstrate rather well one of the things that makes the Books so distinctive: their ear for the musicality of the spoken word."

-Pitchfork Review of The Books' "Music For A French Elevator"