Cooking by the Book Vol. 1: Outkast Early Years
by Simon Reinhardt
Cooking by the Book Vol. 1, a meticulously researched and beautifully produced zine about the early years of Outkast just arrived in the mail last week. The book comes from Pure Baking Soda, a French outfit that I don’t know much about, and is a real treat for any fan of Outkast, music zines, or good writing in general.
I was immediately struck by what a great package the creators have put together. At 48 pages, the book itself has a nice heft to it, and little touches like orange paper, full bleed illustrations, and a very clean trim all add a lot. It came in a polybag with a business card and the excellent print below:
Cooking by the Book is much more than an attractive package, though; I’m happy to report that the content is top-notch. The writers have done a great deal of research. I’m a pretty big Outkast fan and I found myself learning a lot about the group. Not only do the writers condense and digest a good deal of historical material, they do so in a way that casts a light on the exceptional qualities of the music itself. Although the writing is much more oriented toward history than criticism, I felt like I better understand Outkast’s music (and I’ve spent a whole lot of time listening to and thinking about Outkast). That’s a tough balancing act to pull off, and the authors really nailed it.
The artwork is wonderful as well. The drawings are very expressive and well suited to the subject matter. There’s a certain quality to Outkast’s early music–a thickness or even chunkiness in the sound–and the slightly rough funkiness of the art feels like a perfect visual corollary to the music under discussion.
I haven’t been able to find a whole lot of information about this zine (not in English anyway). It appears to have been published by Éditions FP&CF. I ordered the book from them and it arrived promptly, but their website seems to have gone down in the interim. Pure Baking Soda seems to have a website here as well as a tumblr here. Additionally, up and comer Ryan Hemsworth remixed the Outkast classic “Return of the ‘G’” for the project and you can listen to the results here.
10 Notes/ Hide
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simonmreinhardt reblogged this from dogcitypress and added:
Wrote up Cooking by the Book for Dog City. This book was an excellent read, very exciting, go check it out.
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