THE LIBRARY IS ON FIRE- RELEASE "MAGIC WINDOWS, MAGIC NIGHTS" LP
February 27, 2010, 06:40 PM
In 2004, following the suicide of a close friend and band mate, The Library is on Fire front-man Steve Five relocated to New York in a state of shock on the cold streets of Brooklyn; broke, broken, hungry, mourning, and steps away from pawning away his dead friend’s Univox Mosrite Copy guitar. Five, who had once toured as sound engineer for Brooklyn noise-rock band Ex Models (who have extensively toured with The Yeah Yeah Yeahs), now found himself working at Strand bookstore where he fatefully met reclusive Television guitarist Tom Verlaine, eventually meeting weekly over coffee at a nearby café. With an enriched intellectual youth, Five began writing a manifesto entitled “The Library is on Fire,” the title taken after a poem written by obscure war poet Rene Char.
The novelty namesake eventually metamorphosed into a recording project by Five in late 2007 in the college town of Kent, Ohio, culminating in the 2008 debut release of Cassette engineered by famed Guided by Voices producer Todd Tobias. Five enlisted drummer Pete Sustarsic and bassist Mark Shue to complete his line-up and the trio set off to play their debut performance together at Brooklyn's Glasslands Gallery supported by 2010 Grammy Nominees The Ting Tings. Eventually formulating a catalog of original tracks, the sadness, hopelessness, rage, and redemption that accompanies great loss had become acute in Five’s songwriting coming into fruition with a series of recording sessions with the legendary producer to channel these experiences into a comprehensive and resonant track-listing.
Fast forward to 2009 - a consuming and prolific year for the band, writing over forty songs, playing countless New York shows and touring the U.S. with Brighton, UK noise punk trio My Device. Five engineered albums by punk duo Red Dawn II for Thurston Moore’sEcstatic Peace! Label, the final USAISAMONSTER album, and Oneida’s triple disc set Rated O (Jagjaguwar) while also premiering collage work (and subsequent album art) in a group art show in Williamsburg, and recording a guest guitar appearance on Robert Pollard's(Guided by Voices) 2009 release Elephant Jokes. The Library is on Fire had been in pre-production at their Brooklyn loft for weeks prior, arranging instrumentation and making demos. They had booked more than a dozen loft parties at the famed "TLIOF Headquarters," where they both reside and play, showcasing bands like The Miami Ice Machine, Knyfe Hyts, Pterodactyl, Oneida and Doug Gillard (Guided by Voices).
The January recording sessions with Todd Tobias, lasting less than two weeks in the freezing Northeast Ohio cold, showed the band’s ability to work at a breakneck pace with pinpoint accuracy and culminated in the fifteen-song monolith LP entitled Magic Windows, Magic Nights (April 6/Fill in the Blank Records). Derek Stanton of Awesome Color (Ecsastic Peace! label and 2009 tour with Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr) performs a guest solo on the track "A Cinematic Idea." With lo-fi cassette performances, urban NYC field recordings and tape samples with baroque orchestration blended with Tobias’ hi-fi analog indie production, Magic Windows, Magic Nights clamors with the noise of a band firing on all pistons – Five’s melodic songwriting often veers from languid to raging, and eclipses the bands' 2008 Cassette debut with tightened Mascis-style guitar melodies and Brian Wilson-style pop concision, while the gunfire drumming of Sustarsic and polytoned sub-frequencies of Shue coalesce into a heavy slamming machine. Magic Windows, Magic Nights showcases a band who know the meaning of impermanence and transition, and how to bridge the gap between oblivion and survival.
