“This is the closest we have to an Americans for our time... MASTERPIECE!... already acclaimed by critics as a classic... One of the finest photobooks in a long time.”
 
Known for his haunting portraits of solitary Americans in Sleeping by the Mississippi and Broken Manual, Alec Soth turned his lens towards community life across the country. To guide his exploration, he adopted the increasingly obsolete role of a local newspaper reporter. From 2012 to 2014, Soth travelled from state to state while working on his self-published newspaper, The LBM Dispatch, and on assignments for The New York Times and others. From upstate New York to Silicon Valley, he attended hundreds of meetings, dances, festivals and community gatherings, seeking human interaction in an age of virtual social networks. In Songbook, Soth removes these pictures from their news context to emphasise the longing for connection at their heart. Fragmentary, funny and sad, Songbook offers a lyrical portrayal of the tension between American individualism and the desire for unity.