In an admiring review of their 2004 album Margarine Eclipse, Spin magazine hailed Stereolab as one of pop’s 50 most influential ensembles. “No one can do beautiful, energising crossover pop like Stereolab,” concurred The Independent, while a US writer, one Eric Greenwood, echoed the sentiments of thousands of ‘Lab devotees when describing the band’s enduring appeal thus: “The formula has never been broken; it’s only tweaked slightly with each new album, and I never want it to end.”
Indeed, over fifteen prolific years of qualitatively consistent output, Stereolab have accrued a vast, peerless cache of work, hallmarked by a unique, carefully evolving but instantly recognizable sonic signature. In addition to over a dozen glittering LPs, their back catalogue is littered with fan-pleasing gems: limited editions, one-off collaborations, split singles et al. In the process they’ve galvanised an extensive, staunchly loyal international fanbase; become a byword for playful, stylish excellence; struck a blow for the feminisation of rock and booked a permanent seat at experimental pop’s high table.
All of which is not bad for a group who eschew many of the established calling cards of rock ‘careerism’ in favour of dedication to a singular, picturesque muse. To all intents and purposes, Stereolab continue to inhabit some hermetic parallel universe forever redolent with the innocent-yet-glamorous promise of space age futurism and timeless radical chic; their essential fluorescence blissfully unsullied by the dreary spreadsheet certainties of the modern music industry.
Theirs is a rich, overflowing palette, readily able to blur the gulf between Os Mutantes and the BBC Radiophonic Orchestra; merge Krzysztof Komeda with the Velvet Underground, Francoise Hardy with Neu! and Burt Bacharach with Esquivel. A super-deluxe blend, in other words, with ingredients plucked assiduously from pop’s coolest outposts: 50’s lounge pop, Rive Gauche chanson, Brazilian tropicalia, North American art rock, East European film music, Krautrock. hi-fi test recordings, library music and more. Somehow they distil these apparently incongruent components into an ageless exotica that is all their own.
Their song titles alone are evocative exercises in arcane modernism: John Cage Bubblegum, Lo Boob Oscillator, Jaunty Monty And The Bubbles Of Silence, Motorotor Scalatron, Ticker-tape Of The Unconscious, Suggestion Diabolique and the like - designations that are evocative, smart, mischievous and, like the music they frame, somehow impossibly sophisticated yet beguilingly childlike. Ditto a litany of vivid, graphically alluring, naively modish record sleeves.
Stereolab owe their genesis to C86 generation indie janglers McCarthy, helmed by East London record obsessive Tim Gane. As McCarthy fizzled out at the turn of the ‘90s, so Gane began a relationship with French-born singer Laetitia Sadier, the latter contributing to McCarthy’s final recordings. The pair quickly regrouped, launching Stereolab in 1991 with Faith Healers’ drummer Joe Dilworth, ex-Chills bassist Martin Kean and singer Gina Morris.
The band released a clutch of singles (sold by mail order, on tour, or through London’s Rough Trade shop) which were corralled by Too Pure Records in 1992 and released as the LP Switched On. The wider world was thus introduced to Sadier’s stately, impassive vocal style (Nico by way of Jane Birkin and Laurie Anderson) essaying incisive disquisitions on the ennui of consumer culture. Inspired by Mai ’68 polity and French Situationist philosophy (rather than the oft-quoted ‘Marxism’), Sadier’s voice wafting cerebral Gallic cool over the band’s insistent dronescapes, instantly established one of modern pop’s most distinctive sonic marques. Indeed, to many, Stereolab seemed to have arrived ready formed; the perfect retro-futurist art band with impeccable influences and polemical power to add.
Equally full-bodied debut-proper Peng! also hit the racks in ‘92 just as the band was evolving into a formidable live entity, welcoming Australian harmony vocalist/guitarist Mary Hansen and drummer Andy Ramsay as core ‘Lab technicians. Further limited edition singles and EPs ensued, helping cement a burgeoning cult following.
With an unquenchable appetite for touring, Stereolab were already eyeing the globe and, on the back of one such EP - The Groop Played Space Age Bachelor Pad Music EP - signed to Elektra/Warner Bros for worldwide releases in 1993. ‘The Groop’ now featured bassist Duncan Brown and ex-Microdisney multi-instrumentalist Sean O’Hagan who helped graft an urbane, faux-‘50s lounge quality onto the band’s already trademark motorik chassis, broadening their appeal still further.
Stereolab’s own bespoke indie label, Duophonic Super 45s, had been initiated in 1991 as a conduit for their early singles. 1993 saw a split Super 45s 10”(with Nurse With Wound) entitled Crumb Duck and the sister Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Discs would henceforth become the band’s UK home imprint. (Duophonic would later release music by the likes of La Bradford, Tortoise, Broadcast and Gane and O’Hagan’s sometime splinter group Turn On).
Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements – their major label Elektra/Duophonic debut - followed in late 1994. It remains one of the band’s best loved longplayers, with all eighteen minutes of the cyclic, luminescent Jenny Ondioline at its core. A significant college hit throughout North America, the album also consolidated flourishing European and Japanese fanbases. Stereolab’s soon became the underground name to drop and the band capitalized with 1994’s Mars Audiac Quintet. - a showcase for Sadier and Hansen’s preternaturally intertwined vocal descants. Mars… was another transatlantic indie hit, boasted a new keyboardist, Katherine Gifford, and prefaced a deviation from beat combo chug in the shape of 1995’s Music For The Amorphous Body – an EP created for an interactive installation by artist Charles Long.
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Indeed, over fifteen prolific years of qualitatively consistent output, Stereolab have accrued a vast, peerless cache of work, hallmarked by a unique, carefully evolving but instantly recognizable sonic signature. In addition to over a dozen glittering LPs, their back catalogue is littered with fan-pleasing gems: limited editions, one-off collaborations, split singles et al. In the process they’ve galvanised an extensive, staunchly loyal international fanbase; become a byword for playful, stylish excellence; struck a blow for the feminisation of rock and booked a permanent seat at experimental pop’s high table.
All of which is not bad for a group who eschew many of the established calling cards of rock ‘careerism’ in favour of dedication to a singular, picturesque muse. To all intents and purposes, Stereolab continue to inhabit some hermetic parallel universe forever redolent with the innocent-yet-glamorous promise of space age futurism and timeless radical chic; their essential fluorescence blissfully unsullied by the dreary spreadsheet certainties of the modern music industry.
Theirs is a rich, overflowing palette, readily able to blur the gulf between Os Mutantes and the BBC Radiophonic Orchestra; merge Krzysztof Komeda with the Velvet Underground, Francoise Hardy with Neu! and Burt Bacharach with Esquivel. A super-deluxe blend, in other words, with ingredients plucked assiduously from pop’s coolest outposts: 50’s lounge pop, Rive Gauche chanson, Brazilian tropicalia, North American art rock, East European film music, Krautrock. hi-fi test recordings, library music and more. Somehow they distil these apparently incongruent components into an ageless exotica that is all their own.
Their song titles alone are evocative exercises in arcane modernism: John Cage Bubblegum, Lo Boob Oscillator, Jaunty Monty And The Bubbles Of Silence, Motorotor Scalatron, Ticker-tape Of The Unconscious, Suggestion Diabolique and the like - designations that are evocative, smart, mischievous and, like the music they frame, somehow impossibly sophisticated yet beguilingly childlike. Ditto a litany of vivid, graphically alluring, naively modish record sleeves.
Stereolab owe their genesis to C86 generation indie janglers McCarthy, helmed by East London record obsessive Tim Gane. As McCarthy fizzled out at the turn of the ‘90s, so Gane began a relationship with French-born singer Laetitia Sadier, the latter contributing to McCarthy’s final recordings. The pair quickly regrouped, launching Stereolab in 1991 with Faith Healers’ drummer Joe Dilworth, ex-Chills bassist Martin Kean and singer Gina Morris.
The band released a clutch of singles (sold by mail order, on tour, or through London’s Rough Trade shop) which were corralled by Too Pure Records in 1992 and released as the LP Switched On. The wider world was thus introduced to Sadier’s stately, impassive vocal style (Nico by way of Jane Birkin and Laurie Anderson) essaying incisive disquisitions on the ennui of consumer culture. Inspired by Mai ’68 polity and French Situationist philosophy (rather than the oft-quoted ‘Marxism’), Sadier’s voice wafting cerebral Gallic cool over the band’s insistent dronescapes, instantly established one of modern pop’s most distinctive sonic marques. Indeed, to many, Stereolab seemed to have arrived ready formed; the perfect retro-futurist art band with impeccable influences and polemical power to add.
Equally full-bodied debut-proper Peng! also hit the racks in ‘92 just as the band was evolving into a formidable live entity, welcoming Australian harmony vocalist/guitarist Mary Hansen and drummer Andy Ramsay as core ‘Lab technicians. Further limited edition singles and EPs ensued, helping cement a burgeoning cult following.
With an unquenchable appetite for touring, Stereolab were already eyeing the globe and, on the back of one such EP - The Groop Played Space Age Bachelor Pad Music EP - signed to Elektra/Warner Bros for worldwide releases in 1993. ‘The Groop’ now featured bassist Duncan Brown and ex-Microdisney multi-instrumentalist Sean O’Hagan who helped graft an urbane, faux-‘50s lounge quality onto the band’s already trademark motorik chassis, broadening their appeal still further.
Stereolab’s own bespoke indie label, Duophonic Super 45s, had been initiated in 1991 as a conduit for their early singles. 1993 saw a split Super 45s 10”(with Nurse With Wound) entitled Crumb Duck and the sister Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Discs would henceforth become the band’s UK home imprint. (Duophonic would later release music by the likes of La Bradford, Tortoise, Broadcast and Gane and O’Hagan’s sometime splinter group Turn On).
Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements – their major label Elektra/Duophonic debut - followed in late 1994. It remains one of the band’s best loved longplayers, with all eighteen minutes of the cyclic, luminescent Jenny Ondioline at its core. A significant college hit throughout North America, the album also consolidated flourishing European and Japanese fanbases. Stereolab’s soon became the underground name to drop and the band capitalized with 1994’s Mars Audiac Quintet. - a showcase for Sadier and Hansen’s preternaturally intertwined vocal descants. Mars… was another transatlantic indie hit, boasted a new keyboardist, Katherine Gifford, and prefaced a deviation from beat combo chug in the shape of 1995’s Music For The Amorphous Body – an EP created for an interactive installation by artist Charles Long.
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"Neon Beanbag"