The Books and Breer

One of the random bands I've been listening to for the past couple of years, The Books, offered me a good connection this week. The group consists of two guys who play a little music, then throw in a bunch of wild, random sample sounds from speeches, music and movies. Anyway, when we watched Breer's two short films on Thursday, I was immediately reminded of The Books.

In the first film, Recreation, the mono tonal French soundtrack over the fresh beauty of simple objects, like magazine clippings, screws and toy birds became like one of their songs; a great base of true music, layered and layered with different experimental excerpts until sensory overload makes you hit the scan button or, in Breer's case, look away from the screen momentarily.

The second film of his we watched, A Man and his Dog out for Air, I saw other similar qualities between the music of The Books. Here, there was a short, simple soundtrack: birds. It was what you are seeing that changes things. The viewer watches lines shift and transform and become one thing and then another, all in what seems to be free-flowing naturalism, when really, such a film must have taken so much time to put think up, create, and put together. Similarly, a few of the bands songs are more simple than not, adding in only the most perfect and fitting found parts not to induce a sensory overload but to make a thoughtful work of art.

So. Breer is good, though I wouldn't recommend him to anyone prone to seizure. And The Books, too, are good. Go listen.