Spoon

for The Weekly Feed

Spoon
Transference
2010

In the search for insight into the nature of reality and truth, there is a traditional zen koan, a paradoxical question posed from Master to Student, that I have pondered for some time now: “What Is The Sound of Spoon Recording?”

When I imagine Spoon in the studio, I picture Andy Warhol’s working and creative area, The Factory; a spacious warehouse that encompassed a renaissance idea of art, whose maxim, in more ways than two, was anything goes. Any idea could be pursued, as the Factory was stocked with supplies to support any whim: painting, sculpting, music, performance, recording, film, etc. I then imagine the Factory populated with the late, great Jim Henson’s Muppets: Gonzo on bass, Animal obviously on drums, Beaker meticulously adjusting every guitar knob and pedal, Dr. Teeth himself on vocals, produced by a veritable mixologist behind the control board, the Swedish Chef. And thusly Spoon’s Transference arrives into the world.

Transference plots the increasing creativity and complexity of Spoon through their unique view of rhythm-as-Rube-Goldberg contraption, whereby the boot kicks over the bucket that drops a ball on the lever that launches the distorted fuzz bass melody that pushes the floor tom to the third beat, which holds the disjointed guitar keeping time on the offbeat. Like these glorious machines, you are mesmerized concentrating on these workings and their effects. Instead of making this album inaccessible, it becomes filled with grooves, at times thick, nasty, trance-inducing grooves. Snake charmer grooves. If there were a subdued hipster rave at a cool coffee shop, this album would be the house music.

Transference really begins to hit its stride by the third song, The Mystery Zone, imbued with a hypnotic mathematical bass drone that time warps you out of any present context, only realized when you snap out of it as the song finishes, you yawning and rubbing your eyes. This is mainly due to Spoon’s affinity for designating an instrument, melody or rhythm as the constant, that one aspect of a song that is going to be the static premise around which everything else revolves, like a game of Frozen Catchers when you were a kid, always determining who would be “it”.

This theme continues through Who Makes Your Money and into the very essence of a Spoonian single, Written In Reverse. This is a solid set of eleven songs that defy the trap of self-indulgence that plague bands who attempt to shun an outside producer, and it’s encouraging to see Spoon succeed in this regard. In addition to it being their first self-produced album, Transference is Spoon’s seventh album, and has a remarkable depth of creativity for that level of longevity. There is also a variety to the album that keeps it fresh, including that adventure in lo-fi exuberance Trouble Comes Running, as well as the 300 level course in dynamic build of I Saw The Light.

Transference is the sound of a band having fun, with its Rube Goldberg machine of bass, drums, piano and guitars falling into odd places that kick the rhythm in the back of its head, projecting both it, and Spoon, forward.



Brian S. Meurer