Stereolab

Stereolab were one of the defining bands of the Nineties. Before and better than anyone else, they knew how to kickstart the process of reclaiming and reworking certain “sixties” sounds that are so fashionable today, spearheading that “retro-futurist” movement from which some of the most interesting ideas of recent years have emerged. The formula of this British “laboratory” combines an acidic musicality with a distinctly Velvet-like flavour and the experimental ambitions of kraut rock with retro-styled melodic openings borrowed from Sixties French chanson. It's a non-traumatic pairing of intellectualism and detachment, of avant-garde and pop, resulting in a sort of new wave updated for the post-rock era.

The band's virtual genesis dates back to March 1988, when the twenty-year-old French backing vocalist Laetitia “Seaya” Sadier and the twenty-four-year-old Tim Gane met in Paris at a gig by the “Marxist” McCarthy, Tim's band. Musically, the two were poles apart: Laetitia was into pop, easy listening, bossa nova and vintage film scores; Tim was obsessed with kraut rock, minimalism and art rock. Looking back, their respective tastes would turn out to be exactly the coordinates within which Stereolab's journey would unfold.

The group's actual formation, however, came in 1990, the year McCarthy split up. Initially, Tim and Laetitia were the only permanent members of Stereolab, backed by Joe Dilworth and Martin Kean; they were later joined by Gina Morris (vocals), soon replaced by Australian Mary Hansen (who died in 2002), Duncan Brown (bass) and Andy Ramsay (drums), while the role of sixth member, on keyboards, would be subject to a revolving cast of changes (Mick Conroy, Sean O'Hagan, Katharine Gifford and finally Morgan Lhote). The debut album Peng! (1992) already showcased the band's talent for combining immediacy with experimentation, offering echoes of Velvet Underground and Suicide, pop hooks and synthetic electronics in the vein of Kraftwerk.

But it was a year later, with “Transient-Random Noise Bursts With Announcements”, that the English band managed to perfect their project. Packaged in a sleeve that reworked, in a postmodern key, the test LPs used for early stereo hi-fi systems, the record is in every sense the manifesto of the Stereolab aesthetic. The use of moog, samples, easy-listening music and hi-fi test recordings, fused with their “glide guitars”, forms a perfect cocktail. But the real stroke of genius from Stereolab lies in the reclaiming and reworking of the kraut rock of Neu!, Can, Faust and company. This runs alongside Gane's other ambitious project: updating the minimalism of Reich, Glass and Riley in a pop key, drawing out the most “analogue” possible sounds from vintage moogs and keyboards, pulsing and repetitive tones and metronomic rhythms to use as a backdrop for his partner's singing. Laetitia Sadier's vocal modulations do the rest: seemingly monotone, cool and detached, the Stereolab “chanteuse” always proves sensual and precisely calibrated, thanks to a style that draws on the repertoire of Sixties vocalists like Françoise Hardy and Sandie Shaw.

The ten tracks flow smoothly, with no dead spots. The opening “Tone Burst” is a ride driven by frenzied rhythms, with Sadier's faint narrating voice paraphrasing the most atmospheric Nico and Gane stretching the notes of his guitar towards infinity. Mechanical drones combine in “Our Trinitone Blast” with Sadier's emphatic delivery, setting up a guitar apotheosis worthy of the best Sonic Youth.

After such an explosive start, the sound softens into the sensual coils of “Pack Yr Romantic Mind”, a “light” digression that transports the listener into the bohemian atmosphere of a 1950s Parisian café. And while “I'm Going Out Of My Way” vibrates with a subtle, deliciously pop energy, the seven minutes of “Golden Ball” immediately shift gears with a spectacular crescendo, built on a dragging rhythm and lattices of filtered voices that flow into Sadier's evocative singing. The evocative power of these songs isn't so far removed from that of the most ethereal nursery-rhyme melodies penned by Cocteau Twins.

But in the Stereolab blender there's also room for quiet, experimental pieces like the spectral “Pause”, where distorted whispers almost serve as the rhythm, around which Sadier and Hansen's keyboards and delicate harmonies float. It's the prelude to the long acid delirium of the single “Jenny Ondioline”, a free reworking of Neu!'s “Hallogallo”: eighteen minutes of improvisation, in which sampled voices, solemn keyboards, pauses, noise, guitar orgies and synthetic rhythms follow one another in no particular order. It's a distillation of the Stereolab sound and its “historical” coordinates: space-rock, minimalism, Canterbury-style improvisation, psychotic Suicide-esque electronics, morbid Velvet-like ballads. Everything converges into a jam full of twists, a sort of postmodern mantra that detonates into a chaotic finale, reminiscent of Velvet Underground's “Sister Ray”.

After such a tour de force, you'd expect a breather. Instead, “Analogue Rock” starts right back up with another incredible array of sounds: relentless percussion, spectral organ, guitar chords stretched to breaking point, hypnotic keyboards, sumptuous vocalizations. The band's tendency towards improvisation finds an ideal vehicle in the acid nursery rhyme of “Crest” (with vaguely Doors-like keyboards), while “Lock-Groove Lullaby” closes the album with the same seductive sensuality that had marked its beginning.

Later albums wouldn't always live up to these standards, but Stereolab remain one of the most delightful (and important) bands of Nineties pop-rock. No one else managed to range with such ease from pop-lounge litanies to distorted riffs worthy of the most deafening Faust and Red Crayola. Countless bands would go on to emerge drawing inspiration, more or less openly, from their polyphony.

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10/11/2006