The Books - The Way Out

“I am the loop that goes round and round in your head.”

The Books and Matmos’ music are hand in hand to me - two acts whose projects feel like opening the cover on a dusty old encyclopaedia, skimming through it and finding the bits that strike you. In some way, The Way Out feels like turning those same pages on a widely explorative self help book, with the search for meaning deeply rooted in every interpolated vocal snippet present across the record. Whether that’s the study of meaning toward loving, toward growing or even your interests (take The Story of Hip Hop, for example), the album strikes me as presenting these themes and the complementary music as a little tongue in cheek, but always really true. It’s an extremely diverse and colourful deep dive into a range of these themes but somehow still feels like each has its place in the album - I’m sure in large part due to its really creative and engaging musical elements. It’s a wonderful project that I think deserves more shine inside and out of the plunderphonics genre, and I would say it hasn’t aged a minute in its 10+ years of life, but it would’ve felt timeless then anyway.

KEY TRACK: A Cold Freezin’ Night - this song always makes my sister and I laugh because it’s a lot of the same dumb shit we used to say to each other when we were kids. It’s stupidly catchy and hilarious and it’ll always put a smile on my face.