Category: New titles

Open Call 2015 Results: The 16 New Books in the 33 1/3 Series

333sound

This was an extremely competitive round with unprecedented submission numbers. So first of all, thank you to everyone who submitted and to everyone who keeps us going. From 605 proposal we have selected 16 to become books in the series. I’ll introduce each author and approach to you over the next three weeks but first I’d like to present the complete list of books. You’re bound to disagree with some of my selections but I truly feel that these 16 proposals were outstanding original pieces of thought that will make…

Bestsellers 2014 – Dilla is #1

333admin
DILLA

As 2014 draws to a close there are lots of lists floating around. The best album, the best song, the best restaurant, the best photo, the best moments…and here at 33 1/3 we had a wonderful year of bests. We saw the publication of FOURTEEN 33 1/3 volumes! #89 Andrew W.K.’s I Get Wet through #103 Hole’s Live Through This. We celebrated our 10th anniversary with our 100th volume! We released a complete set of all 100 books on our site for only $1,000!!!!! We held an open call for…

The 33 1/3 Author Q&A: Alan Warner

333sound

In our continued quest to profile authors of forthcoming 33 1/3 titles here on the blog–so you can get to know them, their writing, and what kind of twisted soul chooses to think about just one album for months at a time–we bring you celebrated Scottish author Alan Warner, author of our forthcoming 33 1/3 on Can’s Tago Mago. Alan Warner is the author of six novels: the acclaimed Morvern Callar (1995), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; These Demented Lands (1997), winner of the Encore Award; The Sopranos (1998),…

Text and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll Author Simon Warner on the Beats and Fate

333sound

Simon Warner, author of Text and Drugs and Rock ’n’ Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture, just published in paperback, discusses a fateful meeting which would shape not only the world of literature and but also influence the destiny of popular music. SEVENTY years ago, the Western democracies were engaging in a critical campaign to secure their liberation from the forces of fascism. In northwest France, the Allies were plotting, then launching, D-Day, an audacious endgame that would finally dislodge Hitler’s occupying armies from mainland Europe. In that same dramatic…

Excerpt: #100!! Michael Jackson’s Dangerous by Susan Fast

333sound

The following is an excerpt from the 100th volume in the series, Michael Jackson’s Dangerous by Susan Fast, out September 25. The book is available for pre-order on Amazon, Bloomsbury.com, and at your favorite independent retailer. Introduction: Telling Stories about Michael Jackson 1991’s Dangerous announced the end of Jackson’s innocence and the command of a complicated, conflicted sensibility.  – Armond White Dangerous is Michael Jackson’s coming of age album. I know this is a grand and seemingly-absurd claim to make, since many think his best work was behind him by this time.…

Excerpt: Danger Mouse’s Grey Album

333sound

The following is an excerpt from Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album by Charles Fairchild, out September 25. The 98th volume in the 33 1/3 series, the book is available for pre-order on Amazon, Bloomsbury.com, and at your favorite independent retailer. Introduction: The Grey Album in a Post-Album World The proprietor may, if he chooses, allow his crops to rot under foot; sow his field with salt; milk his cows on the sand; change his vineyard into a desert, and use his vegetable-garden as a park: do these things constitute abuse, or not?…

Excerpt: Sigur Ros’s ( ) by Ethan Hayden

333sound

The following is an excerpt from Sigur Ros’s ( ) by Ethan Hayden, out August 28th. The 99th volume in the 33 1/3 series, Sigur Ros’s ( ) looks at the Icelandic band’s signature release from the perspective of linguistics, particularly the notion of “nonsense” language and, in particular, Sigur Ros’s “Hopelandic.” The book is available for pre-order on Amazon, Bloomsbury.com, and at your favorite independent retailer. Xenoglossia Just a few months before the premiere of Ball’s lautgedichte at the Cabaret Voltaire, the same venue hosted a series of “Negro Nights” at…

Excerpt: Lexicon of the Mouth

333sound

The following is an excerpt from Lexicon of the Mouth by Brandon LaBelle, out June 19. The newest title in our sound studies list, Lexicon expands understandings of voice and the poetics of gibberish, showing how speech is fundamentally shaped by the complex dynamics of the mouth. Lexicon of the Mouth is available for pre-order on Amazon, Bloomsbury.com, and at your favorite independent retailer. Weak The break, cut, scratch, dub, and delay all support a notion of the pause, the disfluent, and the stutter as cultural and linguistic platforms, narratives of what…

Excerpt: Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kirk Walker Graves

333sound

The following is an excerpt from Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kirk Walker Graves, out June 19. The book is available for pre-order on Amazon, Bloomsbury.com, and wherever 33 1/3s are sold. Art as Atonement For all his presumptions of being misunderstood, Kanye West has received more critical adoration over the course of a decade than most artists will find in a lifetime. In the lead-up to the deafeningly overhyped debut of Yeezus (2013), his sixth studio album, the New York Times featured him on the cover of its…

Kanye Week: Sic Transit Gloria Kanye

333sound

Welcome back to Kanye Week, in celebration of our new 33 1/3 title on Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (hereafter MBDTF) by Kirk Walker Graves, out June 19. The last Kanye Week post is a special one. Our pals at Rap Genius have kindly decided to excerpt part of the book in their one-and-only annotated format. Read “POWER (sic transit gloria Kanye)” by Kirk W. Graves on Rap Genius. Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is available for pre-order on Amazon, Bloomsbury.com, and wherever 33 1/3s are sold.