Trying to file The Books under a single style or genre would be an exercise in futility. Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong started working on their first album in 2000 and continue to stitch together potentially incompatible styles—including folk, electronica, and spoken word—to build what reviewers and fans consider a sonic collage. Even "experimental" is an insufficient description because they don't so much experiment with sound as explore and reimagine it. They'll be performing two shows this weekend as part of the Noe Valley Music Series, so if you're not heading out of town for the holiday weekend, it's a great opportunity to see them in the kind of intimate setting where they belong.