Telephono

Spoon: Britt Daniel, Jim Eno, Andy Maguire.
After a handful of singles and tracks on assorted compilations, this 1996 album was Spoon's first full-fledged release. The Austin, Texas, trio is led by guitarist, singer, and songwriter Britt Daniel. What he and his cohorts bring to this well-used format is startlingly unique and subtly innovative. The songs clock in at three minutes or less, but manage to embrace an elusive and expansive sense of modernist--even avant-garde--ideals.
A song like "All the Negatives Have Been Destroyed" is on one hand a song that's an angry kiss-off to a failed relationship. However, the sonic landscape Spoon create breaks the song discreetly into several overlapping sections, while they hypnotically riff their way through it in two-and-a-half minutes. Spoon is a band full of subtle surprises.