Stereo Total - Automatic music

After the fall of the Wall, Berlin turned into the capital of the new electronic pop. In the wide-open spaces of the Neue Mitte (between the Brandenburg Gate and Alexanderplatz, the heart of the old East capital), a web of venues and clubs sprang up, the ideal breeding ground for a new music scene built on DJs and underground bands. This "brood" - which includes names like Mina, Quarks, Minitchev, Contriva - also includes Stereo Total, an eclectic outfit that emerged from the buzzing cauldron of Bungalow Records. A label that, on German soil, has produced about the best you could ask for in the lounge-cocktail-retro-electronic-pop song department.

But compared to their fellow travelers, Stereo Total have an extra weapon: a lineup that couldn't be more international. Over the years, the original core - the duo made up of Berlin electronic wizard Brezel Goering and French singer Francoise Cactus - has been joined by members from all corners of the world. "Yeah, we're kind of a family, where anyone can show up and then leave," explains Francoise Cactus. "Today the core lineup includes, besides me and Brezel, Scotsman Lesley Campell on guitar and Palestinian Iznogood on bass. It's our good fortune: the more musical influences we have, the richer our records get. We're always after varied, colorful sounds, with a wide range of rhythms and horns. We also really love the way Japanese bands like Pizzicato Five and Cibo Matto do musical collages. It's a 'cross-cutting' approach that also shows up in the lyrics, all written by Cactus, and sung in German, French, Italian, English and Japanese. Her singing style, in some ways, brings to mind Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab, although Francoise is quick to point out that she has "a higher pitch and a less melodious voice." Certainly, you get the impression that her style is a child of 80s pop songwriting. "Yes, I was really influenced, in particular, by the German bands of that era. I arrived in Berlin when the 'amateur geniuses' movement was in vogue. According to their philosophy, you didn't necessarily need to know how to play piano or any special instrument to make music. You just had to get on stage and try. And that's exactly what I did at the start of my career. But I've also always been heavily influenced by 'Concrete Music' and by French chansonniers of the Sixties."

In 1995 came their album debut with Oh Ah, a whirlwind of postmodern sounds that casually crossed new wave, electronic pop, disco and punk, with winks at funk and at French chansonniers like Françoise Hardy. The following albums, Stereo Total, Juke-Box-Alarm and My Melody, pushed further into the manipulative, parodic side of their music, drawing on Japanese pop and that recycling of classic Sixties French "canzonette" so beloved by so many 90s bands. A repertoire they carried across 19 countries over two years of touring.

Today, Stereo Total have found their "headquarters" at the Airbase 1000 studios of Turkish-Finnish producer Cem Oral (better known as Jammin Unit, already a member of Air Liquide). Cem was also central to the development of their 2001 album, Musique Automatique. "The record came together very spontaneously, like a kind of patchwork," says Francoise. "We worked a lot on the sound quality, to make it flow better, and Cem helped us mix everything." Thanks to their trusted producer's help, the Berlin band was also able to record a track in a new language: Turkish. "We'd wanted to write a song in that language for a long time, not least because we live in Berlin, which has the largest Turkish population of any city after Istanbul. Thanks to Cem and his family, who helped us with the translations, we were finally able to make this happen."

Musique Automatique is a true musical "divertissement". A kaleidoscope of sounds and rhythms, held together almost by miracle. Simple structures, cheap keyboards and a dash of punk energy, but also electronic flourishes, irreverent reworkings and forays into kitsch. All under the banner of pure improvisation, as the album's title itself suggests. "We took inspiration from a Surrealist idea," explains Brezel Goering. "It's 'écriture automatique', automatic writing. That's what happens when you write words that flow freely from your consciousness and your mind. It's a technique also used in psychoanalysis to try to attach meaning to written words. That's what Francoise tried to do when writing the lyrics, which are mostly based on wordplay and the musicality of the lines, and have little to do with the traditional way of telling a story. Our music, too, is in a sense 'automatic'. We followed our instincts as much as possible, without pursuing any particular aesthetic concept. We created a huge mass of sound and then asked Cem to help us select the tracks." And among them was one final surprise. "We were in a bar where they were doing karaoke. So we started singing some pop classics. There were eight people in total, five of them our friends and the other three just having a drink. And that's how this unlikely show came about, which we decided to put at the end of the record as a recording." The album also features covers of "Nationale 7" (a Charles Trenet classic) and "Le Diable" (a song also performed by Brigitte Bardot).

The variety of sounds stems from a mix of real instruments and samples. "This time," explains Goering, "we didn't use electronic drums and relied mostly on real instruments. But we do use a miniature sampler for a bit of everything. Generally, we create a rhythm and then sample it. But we also use a lot of guitars, organ, and even a few vintage synthesizers."

For Stereo Total, 2000s electronic music is one big party, a sonic game in which today's rhythms mingle with yesterday's songs. Even those irresistible California punk hooks, in the style of Ramones. "I love punk, and garage-rock even more, so I always have fun when I get to sing a punk song and start screaming on stage," Francoise admits. Garage-rock and electronics are also at the heart of Goering's musical background: "I grew up between noise-rock and Kraftwerk- and Suicide-style electronics," he says, "while these days I really like new German bands, like Mina or Mouse on Mars, and the Detroit scene, especially for its unmistakable style of mixing records." In short, Stereo Total know exactly what they want: electronic sounds and catchy hooks to brighten up the new millennium.

After three years of silence, the pair return to the studio to record Do The Bambi, an album that trawls through the Sixties with verve and ease, veering towards more hushed, refined sounds, from the electronic pop of tracks like "Cinemania" and "Les Lapins" to the old-school garage-rock of "Tas de tole" and "La douce humanité", all the way to the slickest easy-listening in "Europa neurotisch".

Across the nineteen tracks, recorded between studios and bedroom, French, German and English alternate for an intriguing cocktail of cosmopolitan pop, packed with homages to cinema – French cinema first and foremost, but also Stanley Kubrick's, to whom "Orange Mecanique" is dedicated, with variations on the main theme of the soundtrack.

The result is enjoyable overall, but at times reveals a cloying quality that, across 54 minutes of pure divertissement, was hard to avoid.

Discotheque (2006) is a collection of remixes, unreleased recordings and rare tracks, showing Brezel Goering and Francoise Cactus still in good form, navigating, as usual, the line between pop delicatessen and kitsch leanings.

With Paris Berlin, Stereo Total tone down the synthetic trappings of their sound, trying to forge rawer, more direct, low-fi songs. But it's a return to their roots that leaves a bitter aftertaste. "Lolita Fantome" tries its hand at an enchanting lullaby, but not even a seasoned chanteuse like Cactus can lift it out of its tedium. The riot grrrl swagger of "Patty Hearst" sounds badly dated, as does the reggae-disco of "Ta Voix Au Telephone". And even their trademark gags, like the space-punk of "Kusse Aus Der Holle Der Musik" and the sly dance groove of "Mehr Licht", fail to leave a mark.

Too self-referential, cloying and narcissistic, the Stereo Total of Paris Berlin seem to have lost the magical immediacy of their "automatic music".

In 2015 came Yéyé Existentialiste, an anthology that offers an overview of their career, with 28 tracks compiled by DJ Paul Tunkinj.

A year later came Les Hormones (2016), a set of songs that shows the time off did the duo good, with their music sounding more sharply defined, in a triumph of synthesizers, scrappy guitars, heavy rhythms and catchy vocals.

Cactus and Goering range from the sticky-sweet pop of "Fleur de Hollande" to the rough garage-punk of "Good Night, Bad Morning", from the sexy-kitsch of "Labu Hotelu (Das Stundenhotel)" to the atonal electronics of "Halt Deine Kerze Gerade", while "Adieu Sophie" and "It's All Because Of You" manage to sound familiar from the very first listen.

Wild and refined at the same time, Les Hormones is a compendium of the best of the Stereo Total sound of recent years.

Stereo Total's sonic kaleidoscope starts spinning again, spinning out multicoloured little songs, while also announcing yet another label change (Tapete), though with no substantial evolution of the formula: their blend of electro-pop, primal psychedelia, lounge and assorted scraps of funk and rock'n'roll still works beautifully, guaranteeing pleasant diversions from listening to fake-intellectual projects or albums supposedly poised to revolutionize streaming listening habits.

Ah! Quel Cinema! (2019) still has plenty of charm to lure new converts to the Franco-German duo's euro-trash cult.

Consistency and instinct are not in short supply for Brezel Goering and Françoise Cactu, who take the opportunity of their label switch to offer up an enjoyable primer of their surreal retro pop.

The fourteen sonic snapshots are pleasantly rough-hewn, as if the duo had shaped everything out of leftover harmonic and rhythmic scraps. And it's from this compositional abstraction that one of the best songs on the record is born, “Brezel Says”, which, besides lifting its melody from a Lou Reed track (not hard to guess which one), also quotes Trio's “Da Da Da”, shaking and swaying it all together with mischievous emotional detachment.

This bittersweet love letter to the underground nature of pop culture is the driving force behind Stereo Total, audible in the adolescent frenzy of “Ich Bin Cool”, the sprightly electropop of “Mes Copines” (which recalls Matia Bazar's “Il video sono io”) and the excellent French-style pop of “Sur Un Fil”.

Eccentric and endearingly inconsistent, the album manages to turn its flaws into strengths. Despite the presence of several tracks that work as mere filler, it's impossible not to notice flashes of genius like the icy funk-dance of “Keine Musik” or the dissolute romanticism of “Methedrine”, two songs that in the hands of pop craftsmen like Jeff Lynne would aspire to far loftier artistic and commercial heights.

Take it or leave it, Stereo Total don't seem interested in evolving their formula into anything more substantial, perhaps wary of betraying the garage-underground nature that has always been at the core of their style.

To be fair, Ah! Quel Cinema! doesn't always hold up against its predecessor Les Hormones, but the duo can still surprise (“Electroshocktherapie”), which these days is a good sign of vitality.

Contributions by Gianfranco Marmoro (“Ah! Quel Cinema!”)

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