LM Artist Poll No. 74 · STEREOLAB · Results Thread

Holy crap "Blips, Drips and Strips". I'd forgotten how much I like Cobra.

Percolator would have been my number one if i voted, what a bassline

Glad to see "K-Stars", but sad that it's so low. Was my #1, and I would have said the same in '92-'93. As simple and beautiful a sound/song as they ever made. Gorgeous, lambent drone medicine, like a five-watt filament in a darkened hash fugue. Lovely lyrics, too.

"K-Stars" is one of those tracks on Peng (like "Super Falling Star" and "Stomach Worm") that seem to have more to do with the wider world of indie at the time than their own hermetic method

This feels profoundly OTM for a pretty big proportion of Peng!. Working backwards after SABPM and RTNBWA had been released, this definitely made for a "this isn't really the shtick I thought I'd signed up for" sort of post-purchase experience.

Vote better.

Hello everyone! We'll start the day with an epic song that gives this poll its pun title!

http://i.imgur.com/TI8e6Fg.jpg
49. Refractions in the Plastic Pulse 5 votes, 113 points. 1 first place vote.
From: Dots & Loops (1997)
https://youtu.be/RQOrv1EmrJk

nice, didn't vote for this one, but probably would have if the first part could be taken as it's own song. I love the melancholy vibe of this and various other tracks from D&L. That ascending line they sing together is so great, like a sad spaceship climbing into space and then landing on an alien world.

re: Percolator - one of my favorites, seemed like such a bizarro track compared to just about everything they did before. When they performed this on the ETK tour, it escalated into a climactic moment where the whole band came together and the entire mix was fed through a distorted Moog. It sounded absolutely insane.

A few more notes

Pop Quiz - this was one of the first indications that they were starting to move in a different direction, although I didn't expect they'd come up with something as radically different as ETK.

Puncture in Radax Permutation - One of the best features for Mary Hansen

K-Stars - I agree with contenderizer that this sounds like pure Stereolab, such a nice moody piece. But yeah, at this point, they maybe hadn't quite differentiated themselves from other shoegaze or dreampop bands.

Peng! 33 - Lyrics cribbed from One Hundred Years of Solitude

Spark Plug - This is a great example of how ETK just piles layers upon layers of sounds to an overwhelming extent. They got more subtle with this later on, for better or worse.

Nihilist Assault Group - probably my favorite MAQ track. I love how they come back in the end with a more amped up version of the main tune. The distorted Farfisa drones are huge.

http://i.imgur.com/Wf8TeIW.jpg
48. Baby Lulu 4 votes, 116 points. 0 first place votes.
From: Sound-Dust (2001)
https://youtu.be/-eqHVGscSpg

Love the horn section in this one. Is 25 mins in between tracks ok?

in case any of you haven't seen this essential thread:

List The Direct References of Stereolab

Yes to 25 mins.

Nice to see a bit of pink at last. Sound-Dust did well in the albums poll so hopefully some more to come.

Baby Lulu was the last song I cut from my list. Happy to see get a decent position.

Really should have had Refractions on my list. They just have too many incredible songs.

Next up a Cobra song which might or might not be inspired by french film "baisers de secours"

http://i.imgur.com/DrTScew.jpg
47. The Emergency Kisses 5 votes, 118 points. 0 first place votes.
From: Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night (1999)
https://youtu.be/mmfrPS4K1IQ

It's good to see Cobra and Phases has its supporters. I still remember reading that NME review where it got 0/10. It was such a bizarre review.

Johnny Cigarettes, I believe. He might have posted here once.

Love Cobra and Phase and the last two above were way up there in my ballot.

0/10 is a joke for any Stereolab album or EP. Even at their worst they're still an interesting band. They don't deserve a score below 6.

Yeah it was Johnny Cigarettes. It still made their end of year albums list so it obviously wasn't an opinion shared will all the writers. It was their last album to make any of those kind of lists though. Shame as Sound-Dust and Margarine Eclipse were really strong.

Coming up a tie between two early songs, one is a b-side that I hadn't heard prior to this poll.

http://i.imgur.com/9pVHG4o.jpg
TIE 45. Perversion 6 votes, 120 points. 0 first place votes.
From: Peng! (1992)
https://youtu.be/MPJ_AIfntwg

http://i.imgur.com/nyev8Y5.jpg
TIE 45. Eloge D’Eros 6 votes, 120 points. 0 first place votes.
From: John Cage Bubblegum 7" (1993)
https://youtu.be/A5ZPxNzeFA4

Heaven knows that I like a long song, but "Refractions" really meanders for me. :\

Hey Nag! Did you cop your handle from "Nihilist Assault Group"?

Cabaret Voltaire, surely? ;)

0/10 is a joke for any Stereolab album or EP. Even at their worst they're still an interesting band. They don't deserve a score below 6.

otm, and why I found the prospect of ranking them so daunting. Going through these songs as you post them, and really enjoying them. Early stuff particularly, because my first record by them was actually Microbe Hunters, and didn't even try to go really far back until much later.

I remember a bunch of bad reviews for that stuff then too (I think pfork also had a really bad Cobra & Phases review?), and not getting it. Like, what was there to hate? Not like, find boring, that's fine, but saying a record is completely worthless implies some kind of offense taken -- and I can't imagine taking offense at anything these guys and girls did.

Recapping. . .

'Refractions': My #15. The phased out moogs are so dreamy.

'Baby Lulu': My #5. That bassline is so good. Sounds like Carol Kaye on a David Axelrod song.

'Emergency Kisses': My #8. The violin is just sublime.

i remember finding cobra & phases a bit dull, but only because i was stupid

Yes , for a casual listener you can accuse them of being boring or homogenic sounding maybe, but saying a whole album by them is worthless requires some very strong opinion against them, and you're right they don't seem the kind of band that you actively hate. They're easy to ignore and were mostly private about their life and creative process.

Cobra and Phases feels a bit unfocused and unambitious compared to the albums that came before it, but really it has a ton of great tracks

yeah, I do think it's kind of too long. However, if I'd voted, I would for sure have included its longest tune "Blue Milk", IMO one of the best distillations of krautrock ever

Perhaps Cobra is the album where the easy listening music started bleeding too much into every track, but they keep things interesting with complex rhythm arrangements I love Blips Drips and Fuses.

and Free Design, which might actually be my favorite Lab track

Well, being inoffensive could be the very crime they were getting slammed for, right? I'm sure Mr Cigarettes (real name Sharp) had a visceral distaste for the sort of vision of pop music Stereolab were peddling, and Cobra & Phases was the crest of the particular creative curve they were on at the time - a kind of refinement (and enlargement - Blue Milk!) of everything that anyone who went off them in '93 (or never liked them) would find annoying. The British inkies had a grand tradition of giving LPs (or gigs) to the writer who would give it the most florid trashing. S'lab have had a few savagings in here!

It made me angry at the time, and that was the idea.

xxxp

"Baby Lulu" and "Emergency Kisses" = two favorites that didn't make my top 20.

"Refractions" is a fascinating experiment, but I really only love the last part, from 12:45 on thru. Someone from Plaid must have been involved, right? Plinky-plonky bit sounds very Plaid.

Coming up another track from an ep I didn't know about but seems to have heavy support. Even a first place vote in there.

http://i.imgur.com/aDndUPv.jpg
44. Check and Double Check 5 votes, 124 points. 1 first place votes.
From: Laminations EP (1996)
https://youtu.be/h8qqdyGrHcQ

great track!

Cobra is overlong, tracks like "Italian Shoes Continuum" and "Op Hop Detonation" tread water, whole thing goes out of focus at/after "Velvet Water". Still a great album.

And yeah, the full immersion in "innofensive" easy listening was a difficult hurdle for me at the time.

Refractions is interesting. It's flowing so nicely just before the 4 minute mark. But after that it becomes a kind of strenuous exercise. Not really working, i find. Too serious, where is the lightness gone? In the second half it sounds exciting and surprising. Not like stereolab more like a slightly experimental electronic band like early autechre. But when the strings come in i'm bored again. A mixed bag.

Totally a difficult hurdle for me as well. Stuff like Cobra and Jim O'Rourke's Eureka were frightening me with the prospect of growing up and appreciating lighter fare, when what I wanted from pastiche at the time was to either have my mind blown or my ass handed to me (Cornelius, Trans Am).
xp to Contendo

http://i.imgur.com/YcKId6W.jpg
43. The Free Design 6 votes, 133 points. 0 first place votes.
From: The Free Design EP (1999)
https://youtu.be/QPcc07HqZUc

aww, too low

love it tho, like James Bond jazz made out of a Can loop

it's funny that people thought of cobra as easy listening. it's such a dense record, packed w/ ideas, almost proggy. I don't consider it light fare at all.

http://i.imgur.com/0e17lfW.jpg
42. Diagonals 7 votes, 133 points. 0 first place votes.
From: Dots & Loops (1997)
https://youtu.be/VNyCK9Xb1SI

Wow, I was the first-place vote for "Refractions" and I'm kind of shocked it's not higher. It's such an epic journey through space and time and I love every minute of it haha. Actually, the last four minutes alone would still probably be my favorite Lab track. That section has the most beguiling, chills-down-the-spine chord progression and melody. And there's a sort of reverse-"Aguas de Março" Shepard illusion going on where it seems to rise and rise into infinity without actually arriving anywhere. I hope I'm making sense, but I've gone 30 hours straight without sleeping so idk.

Also, Free Design too low :(

But K-Stars made it, so I'm happy.

awesome! really had no idea how popular "diagonals" might be. one of my favorite phase II trax.

it's funny that people thought of cobra as easy listening.

it's a genre

I don't like diagonals. It's so repetitive in a boring, annoying kind of way. Especially the singing. I hope there will be something from switched on soon.

I love the funky drumming on "Diagonals." Is that McEntire playing or just McEntire-influenced?

I have discovered Stereolab in 1992 on the french radio programme of bernard lenoir. And for me they were the first retro band. Very much inspired by neu! and their motorik beat plus melody and almost angelic female singing. I loved their sound. Then they released so many albums. And the quality of their music was suffering. They changed style. From krautrock motorik tuneful to easy listening muzak and soundtrack etc. And i lost interest soon. In the beginning they were a special band to me, later on they became so generic and vacuous. Maybe i am the only one who feels like this but i can't change it.