LM Artist Poll No. 74 · STEREOLAB · Results Thread

Which albums do the "Margerine Eclipse" boosters not rate highly? The early stuff I guess?

Margerine Eclipse might be the least familiar of their LPs for me. Though it's mostly fun, and I had "La Demeure" on my shortlist until a late cull. Somewhere in the ILX archives is a regrettable thread I started shortly before its release in which I asked whether we even needed any more Stereolab recordings at that point. Doomed before I even heard a note!

I think Nov '94 was the best Stereolab show I saw - Sheffield Leadmill (Laika and David McAlmont supporting! Not together, sadly). I guess I saw them... six times, maybe, between '92 and '04.

No, I've checked the web and I went to nine shows...

Oct '92 Boardwalk, Manchester
Oct '93 Garage, London
Nov '94 Leadmill, Sheffield (Laika, McAlmont)
Jun '95 Lomax, Liverpool (Yo La Tengo)
Sep '95 Riverside, Newcastle (Tortoise, Mouse on Mars)
Mar '96 Forum, London (Tortoise, Broadcast)
Nov '99 Heaven, London
Apr '00 ATP, Camber Sands
Apr '04 9:30 Club, Washington DC

!!! The web suggests that my equivalent, er, list is:

1998-02-03, Prince of Wales, Melbourne

I have an old VHS of a live gig filmed from the side of the stage, you can easily imagine you are on stage with them, playing bass maybe.

At one point, band member asks Tim what's next, tim replies "Harmonium Percolater" or some such, band member goes "ah, which one's that?" and Tim goes, "you know, langalanga dungung nerrrr"

(Quotes from memory, probably not exact)

Posted this thread on the stereolab.co.uk forum and apparently a couple of readers are wondering why Margerine Eclipse isn't in the top 10 albums. I voted for two tracks but had no idea it had a fanbase. Only one of you included it in his albums list in 3rd or 4th place iirc.

I listened to Sound-Dust and Margerine Eclipse back-to-back a while ago and remember being struck by how joyous the former was and how deflated the latter, despite some lovely material. I had liked Margerine a lot upon release, when I still had little sense of who was in the band and what Mary Hansen's passing meant for them (despite Sadier singing "goodbye, Mary") — I'd been a fan since '98 but still didn't really know who the group were (had never seen them). The relative anonymity of the band members ("Anonymous Collective," no group photos in the album artwork) seemed key to their utopianism; yet in another sense Stereolab weirdly didn't seem like "people." The separation between the knowingly allusive track titles (which, like a lot of us, I often don't remember) and emotionally/politically direct lyrics (which I often do) performs some of this displacement, too — the "meaning" seemed to be in the gap between the two things, but in a way the meaning was the gap itself. I wonder if insisting on this gap became difficult to sustain over time. More recently, reading interviews where Laetitia Sadier has talked about the band's "industrial" production methods (recording a huge number of tracks very quickly, basically), which she seemed to find increasingly dehumanizing, was rather poignant. I actually love Chemical Chords (my #2 album), whose making she described as particularly difficult, but where I hear this sense of looking out in longing over the horizon on the title track, and seeing the end of something on the closing track. Not sure if they knew it was the end (at least for a while) when they were making it, but it feels that way.

Only one of you included it in his albums list in 3rd or 4th place iirc.

from the opposite pov - I like margerine eclipse fine but it feels very unambitious after their previous string of albums. post-sound dust it really does feel like they're just doing beep-bloop stereolab.

I was at the Forum and Heaven shows that Michael attended too! Probably saw them about a dozen times altogether. Most exotic location was, erm, probably Eindhoven.

Actually, it was a different '96 show. Got confused by the reference to Broadcast. Think I saw them in Kilburn with Broadcast supporting (and Squarepusher?), around the time Fluorescences EP was released.

from the opposite pov - I like margerine eclipse fine but it feels very unambitious after their previous string of albums. post-sound dust it really does feel like they're just doing beep-bloop stereolab

OTM. "Chemical Chords" is much of the same, but catchier. They were mostly running in place in the last few years of their career.

I think there are lots of great individual songs in there, but yeah, overall there was just less joy in what they were doing after Mary passed

Good morning! The rollout today starts with a collaboration.

http://i.imgur.com/yMJEidj.jpg
35. Animal or Vegetable 6 votes, 143 points. 0 first place votes.
From: Crumb Duck 7" w/NWW (1993)

wow, crazy

[no comments due to everyone listening to the full duration of this track]

Always thought Crumb Duck EP was one of the cooler things they did

Shoot forgot the yt link:

http://youtu.be/h56tXx8JHMI

one of my favorites, voted it high

http://i.imgur.com/KbSQGPY.jpg
TIE 33. The Light that Will Cease to Fail 7 votes, 143 points. 0 first place votes.
From: Super 45 10" (1991)
http://youtu.be/5F1OcUB3GKM

http://i.imgur.com/3IOmluw.jpg
TIE 33. The Noise of Carpet 7 votes, 143 points. 0 first place votes.
From: Noises EP / Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1996)
http://youtu.be/8qisn5damOI

I think I for gat about Noise of Carpet when I put my ballot together because it definitely is one of my favorites. I love when she gets real strident in her vocal delivery. I wish the continued to do heavy songs like this every once in a while after this.

*forgot

http://i.imgur.com/DYTQbzn.jpg
32. Transona Five 6 votes, 145 points. 0 first place votes.
From: Mars Audiac Quintet (1994)
http://youtu.be/FKrYdhMdBfM

that's five from MAQ! has any album placed as many so far?

'We're on the road againnnnnnn'

I think ETK has?

Oh no, youre right four from ETK.

http://i.imgur.com/gwL1DTM.jpg
31. Tomorrow is Already Here 7 votes, 149 points. 0 first place votes.
From: Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1996)

5 vs 5 now

http://i.imgur.com/ppX509g.jpg
30. Motoroller Scalatron 6 votes, 150 points. 0 first place votes.
From: Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1996)
http://youtu.be/QHMe2nW0d08

6 now! New record.

Have any 1st-place votes shown up yet?

cool song, and something about it striking me as very Deerhoof. Like, if you raised the lead vocal up an octave, and sped it up by 20 bpm, it could be something on Apple O

Yes, several! Not in today's count though.

There are a couple in today's countdown later on. Most of them are stacked on the top 20.

Just checking out their UK chart history, and there was a moment '94-'97 (washed onto commercial shores with BritPop, I guess, though they stood far apart from it) when they sort of had a fringe mainstream presence - and then it promptly vanished:

Mars Audiac Quintet #16
Music for the Amorphous Body Study Center (mini) #59
Emperor Tomato Ketchup #27
Refried Ectoplasm #30
Dots and Loops #19
Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night #92
Sound-Dust #117
Margerine Eclipse #108
Chemical Chords #102

I mean, jeez, #117 with a bullet for Sound-Dust? I've probably seen terrible indie chancers playing third on the bill on the toilet circuit who managed that with a bit of favourable press and some Lamacq/Peel-as-was radio play. I honestly thought everything they released debuted inside the top 20 up to and including the 4AD record.

Xpost: yes, it does sound Deerhoof-esque. A bit tighter but it's the same sort of sonic palette they use.

Tomorrow Is Already Here and Motoroller Scalatron always reminded me of campfire singalongs

I think Sound-Dust was terribly overlooked. I think Cobra at the time was an album that made many people lose interest and it didn't help with the organic hype. If Cobra had stayed an ep or series of eps, I think the hype surrounding Sound Dust would have helped them have a better comeback (sales-wise) on the new decade. The album is excellent, maybe even with Cobra deflating interest in the band, marketing efforts would have helped.

There also seemed to be a shift in the "indie" audience from the 90s into the 00s, at least from my perspective. Early 00's electro and hip hop were in vogue, poptimism had won and the indie crowd were more into party music than the more introspective and delicate songs in Sound Dust.

Speaking of which... Final tie in the poll and contains one of my favorite sound dust songs:

http://i.imgur.com/jBIibVn.jpg
TIE 28. Captain Easychord 7 votes, 151 points. 0 first place votes.
From: Captain Easychord EP / Sound-Dust (2001)
http://youtu.be/KZ9z0Puurgk

http://i.imgur.com/TPCTKlC.jpg
TIE 28. Our Trinitone Blast 7 votes, 151 points. 0 first place votes.
From: Transient Random Noise-Bursts... (1993)
http://youtu.be/IZsuqlJ4kUI

wow, nice. Our Trinitone Blast is another one, like The Noise of Carpet, where Laetitia's vocals sound much more impassioned and forceful. Love it.

Really like the outro on the album version of Captain Easychord.

Amazing run so far today, five of these nine were on my ballot.

There was definitely something uncool about Stereolab in 2001, they were a safe firm of retro that seemed so unadventurous all of a sudden. At least compared to what they'd been doing five years earlier. I blame John McEntire's production (I'm sort of serious about this).

Safe form of retro, rather. Maybe I'll think this over some more when I'm not typing this on my phone.

The show I saw on the Cobra and Phases tour was easily the largest I've ever seen them play, and it was also fairly uninspired. I felt bad because I had excitedly dragged a couple friends to it who had never seen them before. Don't know if this was a common experience at that time.

On the flip side, shows that I saw in support of Microbe Hunters and Sound-Dust were some of their best and had lots of energy.

I never experienced a bad or even lacklustre Stereolab show. They were always good. Even on the final North American tour (2008 I think) they were on fire. Best shows were in the mid-90s though. Love live Stereolab so much. I had ABC Music on my ballot for this reason - it's the best representation of what they sounded like live. It's brilliant that there are complete concerts on youtube now.

Oh man, I kind of wish I listed ABC Music on the album portion now -- yeah, they have this louder more aggressive sound that appeals to me a lot.

I sadly only got into them during Chemical Chords, which was the only time I got to see the play live. Still one of the funnest gigs I've been to, though.

MAQ vs ETK goes 6 on 6 once again.

http://i.imgur.com/lVKrnUJ.jpg
27. Wow & Flutter 6 votes, 153 points. 1 first place votes.
From: Wow and Flutter EP / Mars Audiac Quintet (1994)
https://youtu.be/JI-G5Cd6OeU