The Books

At heart, the Books are sound collectors who reverently dip into their vast archives of recordings to find the sampled odds and ends that leap out of each track. But what makes their third album so breathtaking is their uncanny ability to play matchmaker, pairing found sounds with new ones to breed astonishing, delicate babies who still speak a secret, heavenly language: a banjo rolls and rock-a-byes over and under the hoarse, recorded voice of an SOB schoolmaster; a basketball dribbles a casual beat for an organic-synthetic duet of stream-of-consciousness lyrics.