The Lemon of Pink

The Books were Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong, a duo who built music out of found audio — field recordings, voice samples, tape fragments — combined with acoustic instruments and electronic processing. Their approach was closer to library work than songwriting, and the results were unlike anything else.

The Lemon of Pink, the title track of their 2003 album, is characteristic Books: a collage of voices, instruments, and recorded fragments arranged into something that has the emotional arc of a song without its conventional structure. The title's linguistic inversion suggests the album's interest in how categories mislead.

The Books dissolved in 2012. Zammuto's subsequent work has continued the tape-collage tradition. Their three albums with Tomlab remain some of the most genuinely original recordings of the 2000s.