Customer Reviews

Telephono & Soft Effects

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One of the unfortunate things about the amazing Spoon is that their best works tend to drop out of sight every now and then. This was the case with debut album "Telephono" and EP "Soft Effects," both of which have been unavailable except at hideous used prices.

Well, until now. Now both have been reissued together, and now listeners can hear the full scope of Spoon's spare, rough-edged rock'n'roll goodness. Both the EP and the debut aren't quite perfect, but they are good enough to deserve plenty of repeated listening, alongside Spoon's other works.

"Telephono" asserts itself from the very beginning, with the outstanding riffs and blistering rhythms of "Don't Buy the Realistic," with lots of hooks and Pixieish flavor, and frontman Britt Daniels singing rather simplistic lyrics about taking his hand. "Not Turning Off" ups the ante with its slow-burning bass-rock.

They continue the same sort of sound, with catchy melodies that are similar, but not so much that any of them sound alike. Expect racing drums'n'guitar, a relatively slow and melancholy number about "f**cking torture... nefarious," the hard-rock explosions, and the pulse-racing bass-rock. It doesn't slow down for even one song, thank God.

And then there's "Soft Effects." It opens with the slow, blazing rocker "Mountains to Sound," and then proceeds to guitar-edged powerpop, quavering indie with little synthy shivers, and stormy fuzz-rock. It would probably be among Spoon's best ever, if it were twice the size it is.

One of Spoon's biggest appeals is that they are unpretentious musically -- especially in these two, when they were just starting in the music biz. Often you can tell what quality a band has by their debut -- and Spoon showed the promise that later made "Girls Can Tell" and "Kill the Moonlight" so good. You can tell just by listening.

The music here is raw and relatively unpracticed, like a diamond that hasn't been cut and polished yet. They mellowed out substantially in future releases. But it's also sincere and exploding with enthusiasm. These guys pack the entire album with blistering guitar riffs and tightly coiled basslines, which practically erupt from the speakers.

Frontman/singer Britt Daniel is just amazing with the vocals; his singing is usually as rough as the music here, but in songs like "Nefarious," he tries out mellow, smooth vocals instead. The lyrics are the uneven point -- some are simplistic, but then others are just wonderfully warped ("She was smoking up all his cigarettes/And putting 'em out in his hand/She said that you think this hurts now, kid, well/Just wait till later man...")

Spoon's first few discs have finally come back into print, and "Telephono" and "Soft Effects" are as brilliantly raw as ever. Must-listens for fans of classic indie-rock.

Once or twice every 15 years I hear an outstanding rock songwriter (Ray Davies, Robert Pollard,)- it's an exciting energizing feeling. And it's also a feeling like, "I'm gonna have a listening relationship with this artist for a long time." That's the feeling I got when I heard the songs of Britt Daniel (who has an extremely compelling charismatic singing voice. He let's it all out on this one! Shouting, screaming, singing melodies from a raw place.)

This CD (and EP)are his early efforts and, although rawer than later Spoon songs, it rocks with attitude, excitement, honesty, and some killer pop hooks (e.g. track 5 "Nefarious".) The songs on "Telephono" have jumpy song structures, some girl-boy harmonies, soft-loud dynamics and I was blasting it while driving in my car today. I actually thanked God for letting me hear this CD. That's how grateful I am to have had this recording come into my hands (and ears). I love it.

I'm one of those people who think Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is Spoon's best CD. while these two recordings have some good songs, many are only interesting for about 20 seconds. I think Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is the perfect blend of Telefono's rawness and the more polished Kill The Moonlight phase. Still, Cvantez, Idiot Driver and Plastic Mylar are some of the more memorable tracks here.

The first thing that came to my mind with these albums is that Spoon is loud. These albums show Spoon back in the days when they were jamming as loud as the Pixies.

"Telephono" is very raw and filled with jagged guitars. Daniel's screams are oh-so-grating, but the sound production values are so surprisingly high. Although Spoon sometimes gets a little too over their heads like Nada Surf in their early days, the recordings are filled with sneaky effects, such as the lo-fidelity screaming effects and the panning sounds from right to left.

And there are plenty of awesome guitar riffs, such as the crazy riffs in "Theme to Wendel Stivers." They even pull off alternating guitars out of rhythm (and alternating between the left and right) before Daniel picks up the pace with his punk-style vocals.

"Soft Effects" is a slightly softer album, and as the album title states, Spoon started integrating more elaborate arrangements of soft guitar sounds, drums and vocal effects. Songs like "Waiting for the Kid to Come Out" demonstrate Spoon's ability to use soft-to-loud chord dynamics. And Daniel still does awesome vocal tricks, with multiple voice tracks and some loud banging in the background. "I Could See the Dude" demonstrates Spoon's use of dreamy echo guitars.

Although the album isn't exactly a soft EP, with loud buzzing sounds in "Get Out The States," the EP shows a progression in Spoon's sound.

These albums may not be the best songs in the Spoon collection, but they are welcome compilations of Spoon back in their raw and loud days.

It's great that one can finally get these albums without spending $[...] on ebay. The music isn't their best, but if you can't get enough Spoon, these CDs are good listens and still better than most of the crap on the radio.

- Telephono is the best full album Spoon has released to date. Soft effects is the E.P. that put them on the map and in the sights of many of their early fans. It is my personal favorite.
- Here for the first time you get both cds in one nice package. It is nice and cheap as well. However, I found that the cd box that holds the cd sleeves is a bit too big to hold them snugly and they always fall out. That is easily forgiveable as these releases are amazing and needed to be reissued so the masses of new Spoon fans can enjoy them. The main reason I am giving this release a 4 star rating instead of 5 is the lack luster mastering of this reissue. This release like many remastered CDs from its era has become a casualty of the loudness war. The volume of the cd has been pushed higher in order to match current recording levels of other music to the great expense of the dynamic range. The highs become a bit distorted and the sound is not quite as clear as the original compact discs that were released years ago. If you are a big fan and really like these recordings you might want to pick up the original pressings on Amazon used or another auction site. Or do like I did and send Merge an email telling them to have their engineers be a bit more careful next time they mess with great music.

Like the three Sankara stones in Temple of Doom my Spoon collection now glows with the addition of the Telephono LP and Soft Effects EP. Highly recommended.

One question......Why is this issued as a 2 disc set? All the songs together only take up about 50 minutes, which means it would fit on one CD with 20+ minutes to spare. A way for the record company to jak the price up I guess. At any rate disc 1 is not as good as disc 2. The songs on disc 1 are very simplistic, and dont show much in the way of creativity or song writting. Disc 2 is much better, with better depth to the song writting itself. I am just being introduced to Spoon, & must say this offering isnt as impressive as a couple others........Worth a listen, but not much more......