FRIDMANN-ISMS WITH SPOON

“Keeping the listener engaged throughout a three-and-a-half/four-minute song takes tricks. He’s a master at that”

Spoon are used to being apart. Frontman Britt Daniel splits his time between his place in LA and his condo in Austin, drummer Jim Eno is based near his Austin studio Public Hi-Fi, and keyboard/guitarist Alex Fischel is based in LA. So when they regrouped with bass player Rob Pope in upstate New York at Dave Fridmann’s Tarbox Studios, it seemed the perfect opportunity to get off the grid and immerse themselves in their ninth album, Hot Thoughts.

Then the cold seeped in. “When you’re there in the winter it’s really miserable,” said Eno. “There’s really nothing to do; you’re just sleeping there, it’s pretty hard.” After the first two-week stint, they made a rule: “We’d only work a week at a time up there to keep our sanity.”

They quickly returned to their fragmented, cross-country approach; either heading back to Eno’s