Watch Ours and Yours Truly's Books Documentary, ALEATORIC

If you don't know already, our Record of the Month for November is the Books' masterwork, The Lemon of Pink. We've given you new Liner Notes that help make clear why this album is a masterpiece, and told you about books you should read to enrich your experience. We've told you about Shooby Taylor, the artist the Books listened to when they hung out together for the first time, and we've told you seven things you need to know about them. We've also talked at you via our podcast about why we chose this record, this month. But today we bring you something else to help you find your way into the Books' universe: a documentary called ALEATORIC, directed by Andrew Sales and produced by Yours Truly, about the two halves of the band's creative direction, Paul De Jong and Nick Zammuto.

The doc is split between the two band members as they are today, and clearly illustrates they were two different sides of the music making coin; Nick, the guy who was in touch with nature and lives by the unruly nature of chance, and Paul, the mad scientist with a giant sample library who attacks music like a complex math problem. When the Books were together, those two sides came together for a discography full of experimental, beautiful music, and then they fell apart. The Books captured the push-pull between our society's desire for relentless and efficient order, and the brutal reality of nature. The band's thesis is neatly summed up in the doc by Nick:

"I think we live in a time where everything is happening. Everything that's possible is happening, and it's happening fast. And I think the Books tried to reflect that shift in our own way. Making that music was in essence taking the noise of the world and tuning it to something we could live with, believe in, and love. And share it with other people and evoke the feeling of being okay with the world. Rather than fighting against the noise we can turn it into something useful."