The Bookshop Band – Live in American Bookshops
Letterpress Records – Out Now
The Bookshop Band, as autobiographically described on their website, are “the offspring of an artistic love affair between a duo of English folk singer-songwriters and a multi-award winning independent bookshop in the UK, Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights.” Aptly noted. A heavy part of their thematic wormhole is pressing literary nods into their repertoire. This particular journey “Live in American Bookshops,” sees them doing just that with 13 live tracks recorded presumably between stacks of classics and contemporaries across various stateside independent bookstores. At the end of track 1 “Once Upon A Time,” they ask the audience what kind of books they hear in their hymnlike performance. “Fahrenheit 451! Peter Pan! and A Tale of Two Cities!” people shout out at the end. Good game.
More frequent than concluding though are expository intros about the books that inspire the songs. Ben Please, the male vocalist half of the duo, is often the beginning speaker, informing us that their song “Edge of the World” is inspired by a collection of poetry entitled “Edge of Everywhere,” and the novel “Emma and Otto.” The thematic trend carries throughout the record, almost every song prefaced with a bookish nod and a tale.
Beth Porter, the female singing half and cello player, takes the lead on the Alice in Wonderland inspired “Curious and Curiouser,” first lilting slowly down the rabbit hole, then building an accelerated crescendo towards the late song line “The Queen of Hearts is furious!” Song Seven, “How Not to Woo a Woman” brings a bit of bar-room comedy and an opening cello bass groove. Ben shines here with a vocal resemblance to Andrew Bird (do I also detect a glockenspiel?)
The stories continue and the music swings in pace according to their parent-story. Song six: “Smog Over London” is an English-heavy upbeat waltz recorded in a bookshop in New Mexico. “Faith in Weather” inspired by the central European folktale “Seven Ravens” begins with a romantic wash of guitar reverb and builds with dreamlike harmony. “Bobo and The Cattle” is a bouncy, sanguine folk-pop number with a chorus tag of “Don’t let’s go to the dogs tonight.” Ben tells us it’s inspired by written accounts from author Alexandra Fuller, and her experiences farming in central and southern Africa.
“You Make the Best Plans” gives us a hypothetical glance of a Henry the VIII, who has “moved on to a second wife but would quite like to move onto his third wife and Thomas Cromwell is the man who sorts it out for him.” This song provides a much needed almost-rock edge for an album that sometimes sounds too “nice.”
One interesting piece “Thirteen Chairs,” title taken from author Dave Shelton, is a ghost story in harmony. Main character is “more curious than scared” about a boy who enters a room where 13 people tell their tale and subsequently blow out their candles making the room darker and darker. Very cool premise but would be more effective with a little more mystique instead of lengthy introduction. Where this song works really well though, is the almost witch-spell repetition and haunting melodies. And at the end, where the main character, who must then tell his own tale is quietly “blowing his candle out.”
Track eight is truly the heart of this project, with all songs rising and falling from its’ apex point. In “A Shop with Books In,” Ben Please allows “…the song we’re going to play next is not a song inspired by a book, but inspired by our experience playing in bookshops,” adding a slightly refreshing twist for the introduction. He continues with…
I mean every bookshop is totally different. They emerge for different reasons; they’re run by different people; they exist within different communities. And all of those things have an influence of what you see around the shelves and what happens in the bookshop. ‘Cause you can’t stock every single book in the world in this space you know? All of everything I’ve just mentioned curates what happens in here, and that’s why they’re such fascinating and interesting cultural places. So we wrote a song inspired by our experience of that..
This album works best, as predicted, as a story. Or more accurately as a tunnel of stories. You can appreciate the body of work as a story in itself. After all, how intrinsically interesting is it to play in bookstores in multiple cities with bookish themes as a bookshop band? That alone is magnetic, but the tunnel system gets better when you follow their references. What novel was that again? “I should add that to my reading list!” I found myself saying. Or I’d guess, is that a line from Poe? Steinbeck? Who is this one? As a whole, the sound could use a slight dose of the gritty or bluesy. Conceptually a wonderful premise and adventure, lyrically a 7.5 out of 10, and sound-wise pretty but lacking rusticity. Could swap some of the “Elizabethan” tonality and VH1 Unplugged-esque exposition with a little down-home touch. Layer the chapters a little.
It’s clear from most of these remarks that there are many good stories here, including the story of this album’s adventure in and of itself. Does it warrant repeat listens? Probably not, but if you heard it playing on NPR during a long country drive, it would be engaging and pleasant and “Curious and Curiouser” enough to net your interest. And track 8, “A Shop with Books In,” would be an exception to this rule. Ultimately the story itself is better than the music, which can be a little too on-the-nose with the literary references. If you’re a musician yourself though, you will want to steal this travel idea and romantically tour through all these historic, independent bookstores peddling your wares and woes as well. I’d wager a fair amount that a trip to their Emporium in Bath is a worthwhile sojourn for those seeking a halcyon sit-down, and an inspired venue to read and write.
Order via Bandcamp: https://thebookshopband.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-american-bookshops
https://www.thebookshopband.co.uk/