Wednesday 27 January 2010



Nobody gets me but you

(photo: Autumn De Wilde)

Have you ever stared at a piece of art for a long, long time, knowing that somewhere within your mind and body, a reaction and opinion is formulating, but for the time being it’s not coming to you?  “I know it’s making me feel something but I’m just not sure what that something is yet.”

That’s the way I felt the first few times I listened to Spoon‘s Transference:  the reaction was coming but it wasn’t coming quickly.  “Got Nuffin” the first early release from the record was a decent enough song, but it didn’t really impress me on any great level, and definitely not as instantly as “the Ghost of You Lingers” (from their last LP, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga) did.  That song was like a sucker punch that hit my in the gut and made me double over.  It still has tegh power to stop me in my tracks when I hear it, and just thinking about it, writing about it, or talking about it makes me want to hear it.  You could say that “Got Nuffin” got nuffin’ on “The Ghost of You Lingers”.

So how odd is it that the breakthrough response to Transference came while listening to “Got Nuffin” for the fourth time in context with the rest of the album?  Shocked the shit out of me, let me tell you, but there it was, that sucker punch feeling again, and the dawning realization that Transference is quite possibly the best Spoon has ever sounded.  It’s certainly taken it’s place as my favourite Spoon album, given that I’ve only really been a fan through their last three (the aforementioned Ga Ga… and its predecessor Gimme Fiction), and that’s even with the annoying and frustrating way so many of the songs end abruptly as if the tape in the studio had run out.  If there’s any beef I have with Transference it’s exactly that:  it sounds like the best moments of some studio time has been stitched together as a cut-and-paste record.  Even so, it’s that cut-the fat quality that makes Transference so special.  You see, while Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga was an album with a lot of art, Transference is an album with a lot of heart.  It’s not indulgent or overwhelmed by its own sense of self and purpose.  It’s the sound of a band whose giving us goods, a band who’s got nothing to lose.

Spoon are in the UK and Europe next month doing shows before returning to their hometown of Austin, Texas on March 17th for a show at Stubb’s to kick off this year’s SXSW Festival.  Transference is available now from Merge Records.

MP3: Spoon “Got Nuffin”
Myspace: Spoon





by J. Di Gioia | Comments Off

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