During a period when pop music was overtaken by
uninspired, pedestrian rock and MTV-ready teen bands, bland R&B, and
ultra-commercial hip-hop, I Am Spoonbender
burst out of the indie underground with a sound so futuristic that it
made even the most adventurous of contemporaries seem somehow status
quo. Drawing on elements as wildly divergent as B-movie kitsch and
avant-garde art and film, from new wave and electro-pop to experimental
and electronic interests, the band's music was somehow both backward-
and forward-looking, oddly grounded in the noir-like mood of old-school
weird science but going beyond the paranoid razor's-edge of cyberculture
toward destinations unknown. Beyond being simply a pop band, I Am Spoonbender
was a distinct concept. The project was about noticing the beauty and
details of objects that most people take for granted in everyday life,
finding hidden connections, exploring the subjective nature of reality,
and extrapolating meaning from synchronistic or seemingly coincidental
occurrences. The theory and philosophy behind the band was born out of
the band members' experiences with chance, telepathy, altered states,
the occult, psychic phenomena surrounding communication devices, and
other extrasensory and paranormal ideas, all of which informed and were
informed by the music. Although their esoteric blend was decidedly not
commercial, in the conventional sense of the word, I Am Spoonbender helped launch pop music past the trappings of 20th century pop music and into the 21st century.
Dustin Donaldson (synths, drums, vocals, production) co-founded avant-metallists Thought Industry
in the early '90s and spent two albums playing drums in the band before
relocating to San Francisco from his Michigan home. Once there he
joined political pop-punkers Pansy Division on tour and an album (widely considered their strongest, most adventurous work). At his suggestion, longtime friend Brian Jackson
(bass, synths, ProTools) made the trek to San Francisco from Michigan
in 1995, ultimately earning his master's degree in East/West psychology
at the city's California Institute of Integral Studies -- at which he
studied with visionaries such as Stanislav Grof and Richard Tarnas --
while building a state-of-the-art recording studio, Seismic Séance, with
Donaldson. In early 1997, the two started I Am Spoonbender -- a reference to the telekinetic phenomenon, Uri Geller (who would eventually call them his favorite band) -- and began work on their first "transmission," Sender/Receiver. Halfway through the making of the debut album, Robynn "Cup" Iwata (synths, vocals), formerly of Vancouver sugar-pop girl group Cub, joined the band.
Donaldson continued to play with other artists during the extended recording process, joining guitar legend Link Wray as his touring drummer and playing synthesizer on tour and record with Damo Suzuki and Michael Karoli of avant-rock gods Can, while also keeping busy with several visual art, acting, and musical side projects. Iwata,
too, kept busy with her art projects (which included the highly
collectable Sog Mongeys-sock monkey type dolls), design, and
illustration work for innumerable indie labels and artists (including
designing, with Donaldson, I Am Spoonbender's logo, album sleeves, clothing, merchandise, and website), and hosting one of Canada's largest new music radio programs. Jackson continued working toward his doctorate at CIIS.
Sender/Receiver
was finally released in 1999 on Gold Standard Laboratories and earned
widespread acclaim from all sectors of the critical community for its
bold, cinematic vision, landing on numerous year-end Top Ten lists and
polls. Originally only a studio concept, the trio decided to add a
fourth member and make I Am Spoonbender a full-blown live band. Marc Kate
(synths, turntables) joined in March of 1998, one month before the
first live performance. Prior to his entrance into the fold, he studied
with cultural studies pioneer Dick Hebdige, radical performance artist
Tony Labat, B-movie master George Kuchar, and minimalist film luminary
Ernie Gehr. The band quickly developed a unique live show full of
deconstructed electronic pop, syncopated new wave rhythms, and plastic
op-art style, and they applied to their music such film techniques as
jump cuts and dream sequences with numerous other experimental impulses.
Over the course of the next couple years, I Am Spoonbender shared the stage with a litany of their most interesting contemporaries, including such lauded acts as Mogwai, Cibo Matto, Royal Trux, Wire, Money Mark, Einsturzende Neubauten, Macha, Lesser, Mike Patton, Secret Chiefs 3, and Man or Astro-Man?.
The band's second recording, the EP Teletwin,
was released at the end of 1999 by Little Army Records as a limited
"three-sided" 12" featuring two concurrent grooves on the second side,
allowing chance the opportunity to dictate the group of songs heard.
Early 2000 saw a bevy of new releases from the band, including an
Australian single, a Japanese single, the European release of Sender/Receiver, and the CD reissue of Teletwin, as well as numerous compilation tracks and a remix project for, among others, the Locust. Seismac Séance studio, too, kept Donaldson and Jackson busy mixing and mastering projects for artists as diverse as Neurosis, Bobby Conn, Kit Clayton, Stillupsteypa, the Need, Fennesz, Deerhoof, and Quintron. That May, Jackson left the band and went on to form Memory Systems. Two years later, the band continued; I Am Spoonbender Sender-Receiver and the Shown Actual Size [EP] appeared in mid-2002.
Tracklist
| 1 |
| Reality Dealer | 3:49 |
| 2 |
| Hair Is Real | 1:12 |
| 3 |
| Ears Are Merely Human | 2:18 |
| 4 |
| Replaced By Toys | 3:57 |
| 5 |
| Stopwatch Static | 4:14 |
| 6 |
| Slow Metal Fires | 3:34 |
| 7 |
| What Does The Water Think? | 3:39 |
| 8 |
| The Teeth's Loan & Trust Co. | 6:34 |
| 9 |
| Spirit Photography | 4:09 |
| 10 |
| Waking Dream Seance | 5:10 |
| 11 |
| Parenthetical (Title) | 0:04 |
| 12 |
| Mr. Knife, Miss Fork | 9:12 |