Album Review: Spoon - They Want My Soul

WORDS Brian Carroll

Coming as they do from a consummate “album band,” new releases by Austin five-piece Spoon are considered gratification for the Beatles / Stones camp, Classic Rock radio lovers let down by post-9/11 music culture. The group’s last LP, Transference, explored a prickly anti-pop domain only to be overlooked by the general public, an inevitability that disappointed the already drained band. After a hiatus, recharged at least to a smolder, the band hired MGMT producer Dave Friddman to help them explore the other side of their coin: commercial appeal. They Want My Soul, the band’s anticipated ninth album, is being touted as their most accessible release to date.

Often described as minimalist, Spoon eviscerates large sections of fat from their songs to exert a fascinating self-control, unlike bands like The XX or Low, who start small and stay there for a discrete purpose. When faced with the candy shop of production gimmickry available to today’s well-funded Rock band, Spoon doesn’t so much opt out as engage in musical bulimia. Hearing what they keep in and what they omit is part of what makes engaging with their albums a ritual and enduring pleasure.

Masters at staying on the bucking bull that sends lesser mid-level groups hurtling either to a sanded-down commerciality or nebulous nowheresville, it would appear you’d be wise not to doubt them, but is the new album an overcorrection? 

Bookended by bland, harmless filler, They Want My Soul is a real seven-ten split. “Rent I Pay” is a simplistic caricature of their earlier work, so to see it rushed out as both the first track and single points to one of Spoon’s weaknesses: not always understanding what people like about them. Another potential red mark is that the group, guided by the distinct brand of their new producer’s sound, has responded to the cactus-like, angular dryness of their last release by pushing themselves into a lush (but cold) Modern Contemporary world, one in which their edges have been nearly too smoothed out for the comfort of the inner hellion that lies at the heart of Rock and Roll. 

As much as you might fear the misdirection the band could go from here, they’re not there yet, singer Britt Daniel anti-heroically snarly and personable as ever. He goes to great lengths to adhere a dissatisfied humanity to the windexed production for balance. The problem is that drama-rich They Want My Soul promises to be about something: society, social media, the NSA, Youtube commenters, haters, hipsters, hamsters, zealots – The trope of THEY – and a soul in peril, but Daniel seems too distracted by an unrelatable NYC heart-stomping to focus, splitting the narrative to such an extent that you wonder if the tracklist wouldn’t best be served as two brilliant, five-song EP’s. 

Thankfully, Britt’s mojo-less spirit aspect evaporates at just the right times on record, such as when he delivers a life-affirming suckerpunch to Zach Braff on “Outlier.” Despite strategic missteps at play, Spoon’s overall craftsmanship is keen, and while taking fewer risks, they still elaborate on old sonic ideas their fans wished they would, headphone-ready scorchers like “Knock Knock Knock” showing off the same dizzying cut-and-paste doodad editing chops of Gimme Fiction’s “Was It You?”

“Do You,” the album’s second single, is such cyclical fun that you could Doot-Doot-Dit-Do It on repeat for hours and just get lost in it, like all of Spoon’s best songs. Also darn good is the incredulous early-Beatles-via-Ann Margret cover, “I Just Don’t Understand,” a straightforward rendition of the vampy, ragtime-tinged waltz that flirts with Zombies – of the Argent variety - yet continues to fly further sunward toward the heat of The White Album’s “Yer Blues.” 

Single three, “Inside Out,” is fresh oxygen, its semi-sloppy Chinese harp scales endearing rather than irritating. Meanwhile, buried on the B-side, little gem “Let Me Be Mine” takes a straightforward Power Pop beat and twists it into an Alan Parson Project before dropping down to a moonlit forest for sublime owl hoots in the breaks. That’s good weird, a great example of how Spoon likes to climax in a cinematic fashion, preferring to use the last track (in this case, the gross synth dance tune “New York Kiss”) to roll credits by rather than leave the audience hanging. 

The band’s burnout preceding this release sounds like it’s been well-bandaged. Producer Friddman may have cobbled a swift and decent Spoon album, an infinitely more popular cousin to their last, but it’s hard to shake the sense that there are a few hairline cracks in the vacuum, with generic Eighties and Nineties Top 40 seeping into Spoon’s carefully curated world. The few sour tracks from the band’s prior releases may have been too odd, but they had character, unlike the blah that threatens to shade They Want My Soul’s short tracklist. Musically still very worthy, but a missed thematic opportunity, a last minute lyric restructuring might have been enough to make it a bona fide classic from the band. As it stands, it’s just another feather in their cap.

They Want My Soul is best seen as an incremental improvement, or minor comeback, if you will.  “Do You,” now enjoying airplay, shares real estate with several well-adorned, equally strong friends. If you like Spoon, listen to the whole thing, get as obsessed with the act as a Spoon release demands. Bands of Spoon’s caliber and pedigree are rare on today’s radio, so grading them solely upon their latent capabilities can make criticism misleading when they still destroy ninety-nine percent of their competition. Longtime fans will admit that the band is capable of better work, but not too much better. 

Notable Upcoming 2014 Music Releases

WORDS Brian Carroll

Beck - “Morning Phase”

In 2012, famed Jewish Scientologist Beck released an album as sheet music, ‘Song Reader,’ as one of several passive-aggressive acts in a complex, international authenticity feud between the now-defunct Fiery Furnaces and (also now-defunct?) Radiohead. Beck makes it clear on “Wave” from his new Capitol debut ‘Morning Phase,’ that his loyalties still lie with Thom Yorke & Co. as he unabashedly re-envisions “Pyramid Song” without its pesky, brilliant five-beat rhythm. Utilizing the same set of players as 2002’s ‘Sea Change,’ ‘Morning Phase’ was intended to be a sequel-of-sorts to that newly-re popularized album, itself technically a more focused do-over of 1998’s ‘Mutations.’ The new album was given a company-wide, mandatory listening session at Capitol to build internal buzz and features three songs recorded with Jack White in Nashville. Beck himself stated the album is an homage to late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s California-Americana, while the choppy promo singles released last year show instead that he’s been listening to the Dirty Projectors..

St. Vincent - “St. Vincent”

If the promotional artwork for former Sufjan Stevens guitarist Annie Clark’s new self-titled release as St. Vincent were an indication, she is either positing herself as a demigod-like Emily Dickinson on the set of Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain, a blue-blooded cast member of The Hunger Games, or the new Lady Gaga of Rock. All may be intended, but the last may actually be wishful, as the lead single “Birth in Reverse” finds her taking on a classic CBGB sound from bands like Blondie and The Pretenders in a territorial move.

While her purported concept of making a dance record for a funeral is a little creepy, a lot of bands have been making money the same way recently. 

Stevie Wonder - “When the World Began” and “Ten Billion Hearts”

Big Stevie Wonder aims to hit hard this year with two new hip-hop influenced albums. The albums will feature experimentation with rap - his intention being to raise the vocal style to a higher (artistic) ground while establishing a new relevance with youth audiences - and traditional African rhythms, though it is unclear whether or not we will end up with one album of rap, one of African rhythms, or one of both mixed and a completely separate, more traditional Wonder album. Exciting news, nonetheless. 

Against Me - “Transgender Dysphoria Blues”

Note: If you’re still in a pop-punk / emo-core band, a great way to keep your flagging genre in the press is to chop your willy off, deeply divide your fan base, and then let word-of-mouth reframe you as heroes by a more accepting, progressive national audience. Whether you call it self-exploitative, honest, or just plain awesome, ‘Transgender Dysphoria Blues’ will be the band’s big transcendental moment, a final nail in the coffin of the genre that created them. But, just to be clear, no one is listening to - or asking questions about - the music, anyway.

Warpaint - “Warpaint”

The Chris Cunningham-enhanced L.A. four-piece puts on a long-awaited second coat this year with Flood (New Order, NIN) producing and Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Natalie Imbruglia) on the mixing board. The all-girl band refuses to coast on their modelesque looks, as they’ve apparently been working harder than ever to get serious, do bong rips, and make art, having holed up in a smoke-filled cabin at Joshua Tree National Park to do communal songwriting for their self-titled sophomore LP to much consternation of vacationers.

Cibo Matto - “Hotel Valentine”

Here’s one we didn’t expect: Grand Royal alums Cibo Matto (Italian for “crazy food”) reuniting and releasing a new album on Valentine’s Day 2014, about fifteen years since their last release. Known primarily these days for the Michel Gondry-directed-video of ‘Sugarwater’ from their killer 1997 debut, ‘Viva La Woman,’ those were simpler times, when hip-hop was the domain of elite foreigners who commanded cocktail and spy-movie beats like a finely-groomed cabal of international breakbeat spies. Two female co-singers Yuka Honda and Miho Hitori have long been dwindling in solo career hell until this moment, unable to land a hit. Sean Lennon’s - as opposed to the Beastie Boys’ - vanity label will be doing the distribution this time around, so I guess it pays to keep in touch with your ex-boyfriend offspring of John and Yoko.

Johnny Cash - “Out Among the Stars”

Yet another stash of unreleased Cash recordings will emerge, this one a completed “lost” album from the 1980s. What it will sound like exactly (reports indicate we should not expect synthesizers and drum machines, as Cash was apparently fighting a losing battle against the urban-cowboy dynamics of the era in his darkest, haziest hour) is unclear, but thealbum - featuring a duet with Waylon Jennings - is reported not only showcase the singer’s distinctive voice in its absolute prime, but be “a beautiful record.”

Review: Julia Holter - Loud City Song

WORDS Brian Carroll   PHOTO Domino Recording Company

One common trick to get kids to try a new, healthy food is to lie to them and say it’s junk.

Psychologists say it takes fifteen tastes of the stuff before they actually choose it for their own plates, but the seeds of a nutritious diet have to be planted one way or another. How close I came to lying to you, dear readers, but you are not children, so I’m going to be perfectly honest: Loud City Song is extremely good, and good for you. This third release in as many years from the classical-minded, LA-based multi-instrumentalist Julia Holter stands like a monumental stalk of broccoli, beaming with vitamins, in the landscape of teeth-rotting candy confections, cash grabs, and monotonous “party music” we listeners allow to define what pop music should be in 2013.

The record opens not with a bang, but with a whimper. A particularly timid facet of Holter’s versatile singing voice opens the show, and though you can be pretty sure she’s just warming up, the silence surrounding her is strangely nerve-wracking. “Heaven / All the heavens of the world,” she honks like a trumpet, with a woozy exhaustion that implies she may be genuinely considering them all at once. The same trick is then applied to other, earthbound nouns throughout the song, to clever and wistful effect. You can hear the white noise of the unplayed instruments to follow hissing lightly in the background, and when they finally reveal themselves amid her sweet background vocal harmonies, it seems they aim to squish her like a bug. As the song unfolds, the ominous, bow-played classical bass, muted horn section, and harpsichord turn out to be hers to command, rather than the other way around. The world of inevitable disappointments from which she first appears to be hiding is consciously acknowledged to be a byproduct of her own too-sensitive hyper-awareness, and she declares herself a coward, too afraid to leave her own home to find love.

By the end of the song, you’ll have traveled through musical history from the Gershwin era back three hundred years to the dreamy melancholy of Antonio Vivaldi. Ladies and gentlemen, this is complex, unnerving, juicy stuff, and that’s just the first song. That Ms. Holter is able to convey so much information in such a small space is a testament not only to her incredible talent as a songwriter, but to her sheer will to deprogram the stupid and lazy out of our ears.

As the album progresses from that dark mood to the second song, we find our blood pressure raised again by an increasingly cacophonous smattering of jazzily played, sleepy cymbal washes. The music that follows a lead-in like that could be absolutely anything, and you begin to realize Ms. Holter stubbornly capitalizes on unpredictability. The music around which these cymbals are wrapped is decadent, atmospheric, glamourous, and halfway through the excessive shower of attention, fame, and riches she conjures on this song, Holter loosens up. She pulls out a new, playful voice from her bag of tricks, like a dinner date who suddenly realizes they may have more in common with their would-be suitor than initially realized, beginning to enjoy their company for more than an excuse to leave the house.

A rock song, ‘Horns Surrounding Me,’ follows, featuring a Philip Glass-esque pattern of quarter notes stamping away from the horn section like a hellish death march over claustrophobic oompah organs. Holter’s no sell out, and strange as it sounds, this track could have been a hit single for demonstration purposes alone. But instead of starting in immediately, it begins with a radio un-friendly sample of a man running and panting, the singer depicting a chase between Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf that is taking them into that story’s creepy European forest, beset with unfamiliar dark pines. By the time the blistering dissonance of an echo-drenched keyboard turns the melody black and wicked in the chorus, we hear a distinct eighties “goth beatles” vibe emerge from the record, as if straight out of the Souxie and the Banshees playbook.

Ms. Holter here finally reveals herself to be a powerful witch, playing with our idea of her personality like a puppet master. Indeed, if female songwriters of this caliber were unleashed in less busy times and put on display for all to see, it is likely we’d find Holter burned at the stake for merely being so noticeable. Yet, in our culture of zero downtime, Holter’s music can stay in the shadows and be stunning and brilliant without anyone even noticing, merely because it takes a second to kick in, the average insectoid pop listener overlooking it completely for not kicking them in the groin within the first few seconds of playback.   

I won’t spoil the rest, as the album’s remaining songs spiral around in a cosmic swirl that hints at the cheeky, jazzy pop of a pre-ambient Brian Eno and the ethereal lovestuff of sexy, late-night electronic groups from the nineties like Everything But the Girl and Massive Attack. Call it anti-pop, if you must, but Holter zigs where all others zag, and she has made, without a shadow of a doubt, the best female pop album since Bat for Lashes and St. Vincent came onto the scene, a couple of talented chanteuses who may soon be furious at this relative newcomer for reducing them to cartoon characters with a wave of her bookish hand.

Reminiscent of the calculating experimentation of Laurie Anderson, but reinforced by the trailblazing of Kate Bush, Joanna Newsom, Broadcast, and Portishead, Holter enjoys a unique position of complete creative control over her darkly romantic genius without the distraction of commercial attention, or even an audience. Loud City Song is not loud, but should be played at a high volume on nice speakers (or through a pair of nice headphones) to truly hear the intertwining instrumental play and really get a feel for the shape of the jaw-dropping production. This is an intentionally invisible, criminally fine work, and will likely be honored as the best overall album of the year by many critics come December. It’s a dark horse from a powerful nobody, armed with a small orchestra and a million ideas about what modern music should be. Classy, bold, and emotionally on point, Loud City Song is a piece of timeless architecture, constructed out of music so solid it will still sound pretty good five months, years, decades, and centuries from now. There is nothing terribly bad to say about this masterpiece, other than the fact that it is deliberately hiding from us all.

Even if you pirate music, you’ll want to pay for the obsession this album provides after hearing it a couple times. Despite being pretty good on first listen, it really gets under your skin after a few, eventually providing your flesh with goosebumps on nearly every track, especially the weepy ballad ‘Hello Stranger.’ The album is at its weakest when it sounds other people, even the best contemporary artists we know. In summation, Loud City Song is outstanding, bar-raising, filmic, mind-boggling, and to give it the highest praise an album can get these days: It’s worth actual money! Holter puts everyone who has made a pop record in recent memory to shame. Big words, I know, but this is an album for people who use big words. It’s remarkable, and has to be heard at high volume to be appreciated. Destined for cult status due to its lack of marketability in a climate that rewards twerking with front page headlines, get this album (out on Domino) right now before it becomes rare in less metaphorical ways. Worth going without breakfast and lunch to hear over dinner. Vital music lives!

Listen and purchase Holter’s album at www.dominorecordco.us