Photo by Stevan Alcala
Listening to Austin’s Hard Proof is a simple pleasure. The band expertly engineers music to make you dance, but it’s also mind-boggingly complex. Ten members, Afrobeat and funk-inspired polyrhythms, improvised and composed riffs–the math gets pretty crazy really quickly.
As the drummer and oft-producer for Spoon, Jim Eno is no stranger to boiling down the complex into the perfectly simple. At his Public Hi-Fi studios, Eno captured Hard Proof as intuitively as possible, recording the ensemble live and straight to tape. This no-safety-net approach comes closest to approximating Hard Proof’s exceptional live shows where the interlocking parts serve the whole. “The Break” highlights this perfectly, sounding like you’re right there in the room as Hard Proof explodes.
“The Break” appears on Public Hi-Fi Session 03, out now via Public Hi-Fi. Catch Hard Proof tonight at Central Market.
–Art Levy
