{"id":71617,"date":"2021-10-05T09:41:46","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T08:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/?p=71617"},"modified":"2021-10-05T15:26:34","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T14:26:34","slug":"review-of-book-the-new-album-by-they-might-be-giants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/2021\/10\/review-of-book-the-new-album-by-they-might-be-giants\/","title":{"rendered":"ALL WRITE NOW – THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS PUMP UP THE VOLUME ON NEW ALBUM ‘BOOK’"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are few things you can rely on in life so much as a\u00a0They Might Be Giants <\/strong>album.<\/h4>\n

They come along frequently,\u00a0BOOK <\/em><\/strong>is the duo’s 23rd studio LP; are packed with tracks, 15 here; and often carry serious themes hidden amongst the pristine pop and musical jokes.<\/h4>\n

BOOK <\/em>is no different, though its title signals a major bonus, as the band have collaborated with Brooklyn photographer Brian Karlsson<\/strong> and graphic designer Paul Sahre\u00a0<\/strong>on a 144-page art book to coincide with its release.<\/p>\n

The book features some of the band’s favourite lyrics, alongside Karlsson’s photography and every copy includes a CD of the album.<\/p>\n

Sahre uses an IBM Selectric typewriter from the 1970s to add a new dimension to the reading experience.<\/p>\n

\"They
LITTLE RED BOOK -They Might Be Giants’ BOOK cover art<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cPaul invested a lot of time working with this odd and kind of crude device and showed that he could do startling things with it,” TMBG’s\u00a0John Flansburgh<\/strong> explains.<\/p>\n

“The rhythms of Paul\u2019s type treatments, combined with Brian\u2019s photography, are really the secret be<\/span>auty of BOOK<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though largely written pre-pandemic, the album was held up by COVID-19 restrictions and contains several songs Flansburgh’s bandmate John Linnell\u00a0<\/strong> describes as \u00a0\u201chumorously germane to the catastrophe going on around us”.<\/p>\n

That’s never more obvious than on\u00a0I Lost Thursday<\/strong><\/em>, which addresses the malaise so many of us fall into when events like the pandemic disrupt our daily lives.<\/p>\n

Featuring a mean, funky Linnell bassline, the song’s protagonist finds himself losing all track of time – one moment all is fine, then a whole day slips through his fingers. \u201cIt\u2019s supernatural how spaced out we can be.”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In its closing lines the song seems to directly prefigure our hope for a time when this bewildering period is over and we can get back to some semblance of normality.<\/p>\n

“Nights flow right into the next\/I’m reading off this text and thinking very fast\/This panopticon is full of people sitting still\/Until this time has passed.”<\/em><\/p>\n