After this session, Spoon offered up an exclusive recording of their song “Something to Look Forward To.” The song originally appears on Spoon’s 2002 LP, Kill the Moonlight, and has been played live just once in the past five years. You can download the jam at KCRW’s Today’s Top Tune page.

The song, along with the rest of Transference, the band’s latest album, is out now on Merge.

Spoon – “Written in Reverse”

The Austin indie rock emissaries take the old, new, borrowed, and blue approach on their seventh studio album, Transference—a record that’s not as preen or polished as previous efforts, but nonetheless stays true to the band’s trademark metronomi-rock sound. Spoon’s first LP sans producer, Transference is best described as an exploded view sort of record, with the quartet’s cumulative influences, vulnerabilities, and idiosyncrasies breaking through more than ever.

Winding up with “Before Destruction,” a heady, organ-propelled chamber-pop overture riddled with shower stall vocals and acoustic-only strumming, Transference doesn’t come right out and say exactly what it is or who it’s for, but nonetheless notifies the listener that this record is about the journey—not the destination. Unfortunately, the journey is temporarily detoured via “Is Love Forever?,” with all its air gun drum sounds and Reggaeton Strokes repetitiveness—and doesn’t continue until track three, with “Mystery Zone.”

Despite its name, the delightfully baroque “Mystery Zone” occupies well-traveled Spoon-iverse territory. It possess certain archetypal characteristics—a punchy bassline, some strings here and there, and straight-laced percussion—that have defined the band’s sound since Gimme Fiction, and like Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga’s “The Underdog,” this one has Nick Lowe’s influential stink all over it. “Mystery Zone” ends abruptly, like a bad digital rip or the last track on an overloaded CD-R, yet remains Transference’s most approachable track, even if it does sound like Daniel is singing “Miss Chorizo.”

“Who Makes Your Money?” is a subdued, “Was it You?”-reminiscent groover that, over and over again, asks the titular question (not where you make said money or where you get the accompanying kicks, mind you). Watch for falling Justin Vernon-style auto-tune traces here.

Album highlight, “Written in Reverse” is a disjointed, floor-stomping barrage of bar band attitude that showcases some of the album’s bolder guitar moments and some of Britt Daniel’s most memorable lyrical mutterings (see “And it feels so good/oh but only briefly/Like high school poppers would/where you lose a bit of yourself.”) After the near-destruction of Daniel’s vocal cords and a satisfying, crash symbol-heavy jam session, “Written in Reverse” spills seamlessly into the equally remarkable, “I Saw the Light,” a bound-for-fan favoritedom bedroom rocker with “Layla”-like presence—the second half of the song is a lyricless, heavily contrasting piano coda that will have listeners double-checking their liner notes indefinitely.

The raucous and infectious “Trouble Comes Running” features various lo-fi/hi-fi switchbacks, mom’s basement percussion, and a handful of Dark-Was-The-Night-variety “well-alrights.” The track builds up a more-than-palpable ’60s Brit-pop sound that’s very reminiscent of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich’s “Hold Tight” before crashing into the no-frills piano lullaby, “Goodnight Laura,” and the equally intimate power-pop ballad with post-punk aspirations, “Out Go the Lights.”

“Got Nuffin” is a straightforward, but powerful, wall-of-sound rocker complete with piano pounding and explosive guitar duels, on which Daniel confesses, “I got nothin’ to lose but darkness and shadows.” Transference’s final, and most mechanical, track, “Nobody Gets Me but You,” features a bassline that just might remind you of a certain Italian plumber’s dungeon descent, but ultimately evolves into a krauty end-of-album jam laced with digitally reversed piano rolls, seemingly random audience sound bytes, and mild reprises of some of Gimme Fiction’s poppier moments.

Transference ends in a carefully engineered abruption of noise that effectively makes sense of the album’s ornately fragmented mythos. Sure, it’s challenging, maybe a bit antsy or noncommittal at times, but, to paraphrase frontman Britt Daniel himself: This one is pure Spoon. For better or worse and all of it.

01/29 South Bend, IN – Legends of Notre Dame
01/30 Akron, OH – Music
02/05 Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Academy of Music
02/08 San Francisco, CA – The Warfield
02/09 San Diego, CA – House of Blues
02/11 Los Angeles, CA – Wiltern Theatre
02/13 Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre
02/15 Chicago, IL – Vic Theatre
02/16 Toronto, Ontario – Phoenix Concert Theatre
02/18 Boston, MA – House of Blues Boston
02/19 New York, NY – Terminal 5
02/20 Philadelphia, PA – Trocadero
02/21 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
03/03 London, England – Union Chapel

Image Credit: Ben Ritter



Wilco
After a quick trip through Canada, our favorite Chicago powerhouse will hit Japan, Australia, the US, and probably many more places before the year is over. Just another average day for Wilco.

02/07 Missoula, MT – Adams Center
02/09 Portland, OR – Arlene Schnitzer Hall
02/10 Seattle, WA – Paramount Theatre
02/12 Victoria, BC – Royal Theatre
02/13 Vancouver, BC David Lam Park *
02/15 Edmonton, CA – Northern Jubilee Auditorium
02/16 Edmonton, CA – Northern Jubilee Auditorium
02/17 Saskatoon, SK – TCU Place
02/19 Duluth, MN – Decc Auditorium
02/20 Madison, WI – Overture Hall
02/21 East Lansing, MI – Wharton Cobb Great Hall
02/23 Hamilton, ON – Hamilton Place Theatre
02/24 London, ON – Centennial Hall
02/26 Quebec City, QC – Imperial De Quebec
02/27 Montreal, QC – Olympia De Montreal
03/01 Ottawa, ON – National Arts Centre
03/02 Halifax, NS – Halifax Forum
03/25 Savannah, GA – Johnny Mercer Theatre
04/22 Osaka, Japan – Big Cat
04/23 Tokyo, Japan – Zepp Tokyo
04/27 Auckland, New Zealand – Civic Theatre
04/28 Wellington, New Zealand – Wellington Town Hall
04/30 Brisbane, Australia – The Tivoli
05/01 Sydney, Australia – State Theatre
05/02 Marrickville, Australia – Factory Theatre
05/05 Melbourne, Australia – Forum
05/06 Melbourne, Australia – Forum

* Part of the 2010 Winter Games
Image Credit: Michael Segal

Memory Tapes
Dayve Hawk doesn’t leave his house much, but the one-man band known as Memory Tapes will be getting out and across the pond in January, for his first-ever UK dates.

01/16 Manchester, England – The Corner
01/20 London, England – Luminaire

Girl Talk
The first of mashup master Greg Gillis’ 2010 tour dates have arrived. Expect this list of shows to double—nay, triple—in size.

01/15 Auckland, New Zealand – Big Day Out
01/17 Gold Coast, Australia – Big Day Out
01/20 Melbourne, Australia – Palace
01/22 Sydney, Australia – Big Day Out
01/23 Sydney, Australia – Big Day Out
01/25 New Town, Australia – The Enmore
01/26 Melbourne, Australia – Big Day Out
01/29 Adelaide, Australia – Big Day Out
01/31 Perth, Australia – Big Day Out
05/02 East Rutherford, NJ – Meadowlands Sports Complex

Great Lake Swimmers
Toronto’s Great Lake Swimmers will start the year in China—an unlikely indie-folk destination—before heading home to Canadian soil for several shows.

01/07 Beijing, China – Yu Gong Yi Shan
01/08 Chengdu, China – Little Bear
01/09 Wuhan, China – VOX
01/10 Shanghai, China – Yuyintang
01/26 Saskatoon, SK – House Concert
01/27 Victoria, BC – Alix Goolden Hall
01/29 Vancouver, BC – The Vogue Theatre
01/30 Prince George, BC – Cold Snap Festival
02/06 Toronto, ON – Trinity St. Paul’s United Church
02/13 Whistler, BC – Whistler Village Stage
02/18 Montreal, QC – Meropolis Theatre

Image Credit: Candace Meyer

Jay Farrar & Ben Gibbard
One fast move and they’re gone, so catch the Son Volt and Death Cab frontmen channelling Kerouac’s ghost at one of these dates.

01/23 Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
01/24 Seattle, WA – The Showbox
01/27 Austin, TX – Antone’s
01/29 Ann Arbor, MI – Hill Auditorium
01/30 Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall
01/31 Minneapolis, MN – Varsity Theater

Image Credit: Andrew Youssef

Final Fantasy
Multi-instrumentalist and one-man band Owen Pallatt has a week or so of shows scheduled around the release of his new Domino album, Heartland.


01/12 Toronto, Ontario – Mod Club
0/14 San Francisco, CA – Bottom of the Hill
01/16 Chicago, IL – Schubas
01/18 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
01/25 London, England – Union Chapel

Image Credit: Swatch on Air

Spoon
Transference is out in January via Merge, and here are the first few in what will be many, many performances from the boys in Spoon.

02/14 Glasgow, Scotland – King Tut’s
02/15 Manchester, England – Academy 3
02/16 London, England – Electric Ballroom
02/18 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paradiso
02/19 Cologne, Germany – Luxor
02/20 Berlin, Germany – Frannz Club

This time around, Spoon went with an image by Memphis, TN-born photographer William Eggleston. Dubbed “Summer, Mississippi, c. 1970,” the original print was reportedly auctioned off at Christie’s last year.

The “Written in Reverse” 7″ will be available digitally tomorrow (12/01) and in physical format on January 5. Transference is out January 19 via Merge.

01 “Before Destruction”

02 “Is Love Forever?”

03 “The Mystery Zone”

04 “Who Makes Your Money”

05 “Written In Reverse”

06 “I Saw The Light”

07 “Trouble Comes Running”

08 “Goodnight Laura”

09 “Out Go The Lights”

10 “Got Nuffin”

11 “Nobody Gets Me But You”