After touring behind their seventh full-length album, Transference, the choice was clear for Austin indie rockers Spoon: take a break, or let burnout mar their much-loved and acclaimed catalog. The 2010 LP came on the heels of 15 nonstop years of recording, touring and day jobs. Those weren't the bar or restaurant gigs often associated with up-and-coming musicians, either; until shortly before the tour for 2007's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, drummer/engineer Jim Eno maintained a separate career as a designer of microprocessors.
Rather than a complete hiatus from music, the break was the group's chance to reinvigorate itself by stretching out in a variety of new directions. Singer Britt Daniel brought his somewhat Anglophonic delivery and finely honed pop sensibilities to Divine Fits, an outfit also featuring members of Wolf Parade and New Bomb Turks that put a sharp edge on danceable electro-pop. Eno turned his full attention to Public Hi-Fi, the studio he built with Spoon, taking on production projects for clients including power-soul maestro Black Joe Lewis, dance punks !!! and Nashville rock group Turbo Fruits, whose Eno-produced Butter is their most cohesive statement yet.
The continued success of these projects made the chances of a Spoon comeback seem less likely. But earlier this year, the band surprised fans by announcing a string of theater and festival tour dates throughout the summer, along with a 27-second teaser video nonchalantly titled "Hi." Its description read, "Less than a week away from a finished album."
"What's going to happen is we'll be playing the new songs, and people will want to hear 'The Underdog,' but we're going to have to play them anyway," Eno tells the Scene by phone as the group gears up for their first shows as a band in two years. "I'm joking there — usually people react well to our new material. I think it's strong, and it's going to be exciting for people to hear it for the first time. When they do get the record, then they'll be able to get immersed in [the songs] and really get to know 'em."
That's not such a tough sell. Across their two-decade career, the group has focused on the fundamental elements of evergreen pop music, a combination of attributes that exemplify "skillful manipulation of dissonance," to borrow a phrase from my music theory professor. Spoon has a knack for blending the wistful with the aggressive and the experimental with the familiar, all wrapped up in a marriage of post-punk sparseness and a Beatle-esque sense of melody and harmony. In the process, they've cultivated a sound open enough to evolve with them, quirky enough to engage the curious and the avant-hip, and with a broad enough appeal to garner licensing for mainstream film soundtracks and TV commercials.
While veteran Los Angeles producer Joe Chiccarelli worked on part of the as-yet-untitled new album, the bulk of the work was done with Dave Fridmann, best known for his contributions to dense psychedelic soundscapes for The Flaming Lips, MGMT and Mercury Rev.
"Going into it we were like, 'Boy, what's Spoon going to sound like working with the guy that did The Soft Bulletin?' " says Eno. But the partnership proved to be a good one, both for the group's continued growth and in the practical aspects of studio work. "[Fridmann] was one of those producers where it's not his record, it's the band's record. So if he suggests something and we feel that it's not fitting for us, he doesn't take it personally and doesn't hold it against the band, where certain producers can actually do that. [The new record] is definitely thick, tons of low end. We tend to like sparse, less low-end-y records, but it worked out really, really well. We were pretty blown away listening to what Dave had done."
That online snippet is a characteristically tight groove, bathed in echoes and interrupted by blasts from a guitar you might mistake for an industrial sander. It's the only peek anyone has had into the forthcoming record, but it indicates the Spoon we know and love is alive and well. Thankfully, it's also a sign that the break worked exactly as intended, sending Spoon back into the studio with their appetites and instincts intact.
"We're psyched about this record," Eno says. "It's been a long time for us, and it's an understatement to say we're excited to play these songs. We're ready to get back out there."
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