I Am Spoonbender – Shown Actual Size
(GSL)

This new EP came out late last year to very little fanfare, and it seems almost as if I Am Spoonbender are trying to will themselves into obscurity. For all their talk of psychic abilities, you’ve gotta wonder if the band is at all aware of what other people are thinking about them. It certainly doesn’t seem like it.

Their debut album, Sender/Receiver, was widely hailed as a masterpiece of experimental rock music and avante-garde songwriting. They followed this up with the Teletwin EP, which was a bit of a let down, and headed in a much more synthetic direction. Now they have left Mint Records to release this 3 song EP and it continues further down the path of repetitive hypnotic beats and mind-numbing electronic grooves… which is not necessarily a bad thing, but they just don’t rock like they used to. Not to mention the fact that they can only manage 11 minutes of new material in 2 years! What’s up with that?

I really don’t have a problem with danceable electronic music, particularly if it has a stripped down retro feel or lots of neat blips and robotic noises, and providing it doesn’t enter into that realm of cheesy techno/house or whatever it’s called nowadays. I Am Spoonbender’s latest offering is well within acceptable parameters there, as the songs beep and chirp and encourage one to get out and gyrate on the dance floor with machine-like precision, not unlike something you might hear from Ladytron or Adult. The song I Went And Had My Knives Sharpened is the definite stand-out, with some very catchy synth work and an addictive computerized breakdown at the end. However, even this song seems a little too average for a band that once blew people’s minds with their avante/jazz/prog rock/pop fusion.

One unexpected thing is that each of the three songs on this album feature fairly straightforward vocals. Granted, they are soft (often whispered), hypnotic, and faded into the background for the most part, but they are there, which gives the impression of a rather basic pop structure. Also, the programmed beats on each of these songs tend to drag on after a while, with no change in tempo and little rhythmic creativity. The seven-and-a-half minute “Re-dial Meant Remember” has little more to it than a cool title… it basically puts me to sleep.

It seems like IAS are getting lazy. For the cover of the album they even recycled artwork that was previously used by a band called Ash Ra (albeit for a European-only release). Maybe nowadays they are only interested in expanding people’s consciousness by giving them something mellow to smoke up to. Who am I to say? All I know is that I find this new EP somewhat disappointing and I can only hope that their sonic experimentation has not reached the point of stagnation already. Because that would be a damn shame. — Sean