John, Chris, Dana and Nate, clockwise from top left. New Neighbors, formerly IY, released 'Bookfight' Tuesday, March 23, 2010.
IY, who changed its name to New Neighbors a year ago, released its last album as a band Tuesday, March 23, 2010. It is called Bookfight, and it is available in its entirety at vault.newneighbors.info. A feature on the band is forthcoming, but we at The Post thought that there were few better ways to spend your weekend than listening to this album.
It’s only been three days since we’ve had a chance to sit with it (the record was made available to the press and the public at the same time, which is fine by us), but even from this brief distance, we must say that we’re rather taken. The culmination of ten years music-making, and the last album by the first generation raised on GrassRoots, Bookfight may be not only the most important record released this year, but perhaps among the top ten in the last ten years.
We’ll explain more later, but for now we will leave you with a quote by the band that is from a letter written to their fans. They write, of Bookfight:
“In this way, this is a record of sixteen minor miracles. We think that in most contexts they wouldn’t all belong on the same record. They would be too diverse. So for months we wrestled with songs to release and which to withhold. But finally we realized something special about *this* context, and we realized we couldn’t withhold a single song.”
We think that Ithaca is lucky to have this to share. We hope you agree.
The Ithaca Post.
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This album really is incredible. A must-have for any fan of Ithaca-area music. Scratch that, a must-have for any fan of MUSIC.