Upon moving to NYC in 2004, singer/guitarist Steve Five was looking for ideas. While writing songs in his Bushwick apartment & working at the Strand Bookstore, Five took the band’s name, La Bibliothèque Est en Feu, from a poem by antifascist & proto-surrealist war poet René Char, after weekly meetings over coffee with Television guitarist Tom Verlaine, who suggested the name.

The band would go on to release a number of albums, including 2010’s Magic Windows, Magic Nights produced by Guided by Voices producer Todd Tobias, kicking off a long friendship with GBV. Eventually former bassist Mark Shue would join Guided by Voices. The band released a number of now out-of-print albums, as well as 2014’s Halcyon & Surrounding Areas, before day jobs and relocations caused a hiatus.