Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga CD

Spoon: Eric Harvey (keyboards); Rob Pope (bass guitar); Jim Eno, Britt Daniel.
Personnel: Britt Daniel (vocals); The Billy White (flamenco guitar); Matthew Colecchi, Mike McCarthy (koto); John Catchings (cello); Jason Freese (saxophone); Ron Blake (trumpet); Francisco Torres (trombone); Jon Brion (chamberlin); Jim Eno (drums); Graham Hughes (background vocals).
Additional personnel: Matthew Colecchi (koto); Tosca String Quartet (strings); Ron Blake (trumpet); Tommy Poole (horns); Jon Brion (bass guitar); Eggo Johanson (tambourine); Graham Hughes, Yasmine Kittles (background vocals); Francisco Torres, John Catchings, Mike McCarthy, The Billy White, Jason Freese.
Recording information: Cherokee And Ocean, Los Angeles, CA (09/2006-01/2007); Mob House, Austion (09/2006-01/2007); Public Hi-Fi (09/2006-01/2007).
Photographers: Philippe Migeat; Sean McCabe.
By 2007 Spoon had grown into one of the most quietly inventive and accomplished outfits in rock. Like 2005's excellent GIMME FICTION, GA GA GA GA GA is a winning combination of hook-heavy pop and post-punk angles driven by a unique piano-guitar interplay and singer Britt Daniels's expressive vocals. But Spoon's secret ingredient is their spare, often brilliant arrangements. Like a Japanese calligrapher drawing on rice paper, Spoon applies minimal lines and shading to make each song a meticulous pop universe full of texture and subtlety.
The ephemeral and appropriately haunting "The Ghost of You Lingers" is a fine example; its radically pared-down piano motif and elliptical melody sound like a cross between Terry Riley and Paul McCartney. "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" employs a bouncy Motown groove and horns, proving Spoon as adept at driving grooves as atmospheric pop, a fact echoed in "The Underdog," one of the album's standout tracks. Those accustomed to rock's usual bombast might dismiss GA GA GA GA GA for its reservation and seeming simplicity, but a closer listen reveals an album of elegant, admirably artful pop.
"Attention to detail" doesn't necessarily sound like the secret ingredient to brilliant rock & roll, but in Spoon's case, it comes second only to inspiration. Britt Daniel, Jim Eno, and company keep finding ways to challenge themselves and their listeners by working within the same basic, streamlined sonic framework they crafted on Girls Can Tell, adding a few new twists here and there with each album. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga just might be the most winning update on this approach since Girls Can Tell itself: each song is as carefully and creatively pruned as a bonsai tree, with nothing fussy or superfluous to mar the clean lines of the songwriting or arrangements. This is especially impressive considering that on this album, Spoon works with their widest array of sounds yet. Everything from kotos to chamberlains to horns straight out of Motown are fair game on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, but they're used so deftly and judiciously that they never feel like window dressing. As on Gimme Fiction, the band maps out Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga's territory within the first three tracks. "Don't Make Me a Target" is a sleek yet gritty prologue designed to draw listeners in like Fiction's "The Beast and Dragon, Adored," and its seductive pull only heightens the impact of "The Ghost of You Lingers." All pounding pianos and fleeting, fragmented verses, the song initially feels like it's all buildup and no release, but this insistent yet incomplete feeling is what makes it haunting and brilliant: its circling thoughts and echoes upon echoes feel like you're chasing the song -- or its subject -- to no avail. Even if "The Ghost of You Lingers" almost perversely avoids hooks, "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb"'s homage to blue-eyed soul delivers them in abundance. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga's songs are svelte, especially compared to Gimme Fiction, yet they're far from starved. Interesting details decorate the margins of these songs, whether it's the studio chatter that revs up "Don't You Evah" or the fascinatingly fragmeRolling Stone (p.90) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[S]piky, painstakingly detailed songs that deliver indie-pop payloads in less than four minutes..."
Rolling Stone (p.108) - Included in Rolling Stone's "50 Top Albums of the Year 2007" -- "Spoon sound a lot like the very British, mid-Eighties XTC -- with the right amount of gravel in their paisley."
Spin (p.104) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "The tug-of-war between bristly unavailability and candid confession mirrors a musical duel between post-punk snarls and genial pop charms.....Endlessly compelling."
Entertainment Weekly (p.67) - "[With] an arsenal of hand claps, Motown-lifted tambourine bursts, music-hall piano lines, and bass levels that hover in the red." -- Grade: A-
Uncut (p.95) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[T]his is their most systematically infectious set yet....'Finer Feelings' turns on a subtly seductive guitar figure that is the quintessence of tone and touch."
Alternative Press (p.163) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[L]isten afresh to Spoon now hitting all their marks: The poignancy of such instrumental minimalism, the emotional weight of Daniel's odd phrasings, the seeming nonchalance."
Q (Magazine) (p.80) - Ranked #25 in Q's "The 50 Best Albums Of 2007" -- "[Their] most elegant collection yet..."