Stereolab: Classic or Dud

what's with this new thing i'm seeing everywhere about Dots & Loops being Stereolab's "pinnacle"? hasn't it been ETK forever?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G76i9M23W64

revisionist canon history, nothing new.

...we're getting closer and closer to cobra being the consensus pick...

We are?

no way :)

It's Sound-Dust

I always felt like Mars Audiac was the pinnacle. ETK was like the beginning of 'late era'...still good though

I think dots and loops might have been the most commercially successful though, it certainly seemed to be a 'bigger' album than the previous ones, and more people seemed to get on the bandwagon at that time.

did they do any tv appearances for Dots & Loops or Cobra? that one Jools Holland performance with Cybele's Reverie and Les Yper Sound is so great

akm definitely otm. Definitely heard dots and loops out in the wild a lot, it's bright and accessible. Hard to have a consensus on a best Stereolab album, like all great artists their records can mean different things over time, and new favorites. Sound-Dust is my choice tho

new favourites emerge i meant to say *

akm otm

man, somehow I missed 'Not Music" entirely, I never even realized this had been released. It did feel like after Margerine Eclipse they were kind of in decline, Fab Four Suture and Chemical Chords didn't do a lot for me, but I'd like to hear some Stereolab songs I haven't heard before today.

https://www.wired.com/2008/08/stereolabs-tim/

The "excavation" process Gane describes in the linked article made clear the band were barely functioning as a band anymore. The songs on "Not Music" were pretty original in their mad jump cut transitions, but they hardly sounded like songs anyone wrote, more like a stereolab math game. Clearly Tim was bored and it was a good time to call it quit. Still hope they reunite live tho

Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements was the pinnacle. I will not revise my canon.

not gonna argue w that

otm

peak is the second half of Italian Shoes Continuum, or the second part of Refractions in the Plastic Pulse, or the entirety of Fuses

everything after ETK sounds like being in a Montgomery Ward and not being able to find your parents

Les Bons Mots de Raison

when you start breaking down the things they do into individual components - lyrics ranging from marxist sloganeering to abstract cutups, ye-ye vocals, dizzyingly complex chordal and structural exercises, aggressive editing, motorik beats, insanely loud drone rock, brass and orchestral arrangements, analogue synthesizer experiments, multi-layered female harmonies, etc etc - it's insane. what other bands do these things? Covering and packaging such a disparate range of sounds and influences and references in such a consistently coherent way is a singular achievement.

even if I did get off the boat (mostly) after Dots and Loops.

― Οὖτις, Monday, October 23, 2017 1:53 PM (three weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

damn otm

tho i probably like cobra more than d&l

Cobra is the most audacious one

Dots and Loops isn’t peak Stereolab imo, but I don’t mind all this new attention it’s getting, because I def don’t think it represents “the decline of Stereolab” the way a lot of fans do/did.

I always loved the artwork and title, and Prisoner of Mars, Parsec, and Contronatura are some of my favs.

I think part of what bothers some folks is that they completely abandoned the rock elements in their music on D&L. It's their most jazzy album and also the one th at dabbled the most with current electronica. But I think it has some of their strongest songwriting and lots of fantastic arrangements. They did start to sound more like an actual band again on Cobra though.

Totally.

But played live, D&L still rocked hard. e.g. Parsec

MAQ is my fav, though.

Live version of Parsec blew my mind, so good

i am really grateful for getting to see them in the mid-90s. my favorite parts by far were the full-on noise jams which i guess in retrospect were very "rock" but which at the time felt super out there. totally primal in any case. that was maybe one of the best things about them, this tension between the high concept dinkiness and the throaty primal motorik roar

I liked how they would take things like the smooth horns in Miss Modular and translate them into weird, slightly awkward Moog leads live. A lot of their songs became more jagged and harsh on stage, which also made them so much more intense.

i sort of felt like that was the "real" sterolab!

I feel like D&L was part of a wave in indie rock at the time where established figures/groups all felt like it was their artistic duty to engage with electronic music - whether because they were bored, or they were worried about staying "current", or they wanted to jump a bandwagon, or were sure this blending of styles was the "future of music" or what. I'm thinking of things like JSBX's "ACME", Mogwai's "Fear Satan Remixes" record, etc.

the thing is, these records suck and it wasn't a good idea.

I liked how they would take things like the smooth horns in Miss Modular and translate them into weird, slightly awkward Moog leads live.

Good tip!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JZhFE5uszA

am I alone in remembering cobra sucking and everyone hating it? maybe that was colored by a pitchfork review or something.

it does have the ugliest color scheme on the cover

Everything about Cobra rules, the cover included, so... Must have been a dumb review from a dumb website.

Yes the pitchfork review is an atrocity, which still can be found online. Cobra is not their best imo due to the muddy production at times, not a spot on some of their other work. But it does have puncture and emergency kisses tho...

You're all wrong. They actually peaked with their first album 'PENG!'

http://www.nme.com/reviews/album/reviews-nme-1392

Another shite review

I agree that Dots & Loops was a huge thing, it bemused me at the time. Crossing over genres and attracting fans from all sides previously left cold to Stereolab. Saw it around me, and in the press. (lots of people who loved D&L jumped ship after Cobra, and weren't on board to begin with before that. I can see why, sonically, but it was an outlier, because it was so popular, even for Stereolab)

I see the P4K review is by Brent D. Nuff said. It's bollocks.

You're all wrong. They actually peaked with their first album 'PENG!'

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, November 17, 2017 12:25 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Think it's been well established that there is no "peak Stereolab", apart from people finding certain albums their best albums. The radical consistency, or their consistent radical, rules. It's what makes them so great imo.

(that wasn't a dig at you Moka, if that's how it came across, just saying <3 )

I was definitely underwhelmed by Cobra because it felt like the first time that they weren't aggressively pushing forward with their sound. It was a bit unfocused and overlong like many CDs at the time. But really, it has lots of great tracks, maybe just needed to cut some filler.

That's interesting, because for me Cobra was the first time they really delivered the jazz, a direction they'd always hinted at, something that sounded as a promise in all of their previous records, but never came into fruition until then.

I feel like there are several pretty jazzy songs on D&L and not much on Cobra besides "Fuses" and maybe "Velvet Water".

Stereolab peaked with "Hallogallo" (sorry).

They did rule live. I don’t know if they always did this, but often their sound guy would have a Moog Prodigy (I think?) that he would filter the entire band through during their freak out moments.

damn that's awesome.

i saw em on the cobra tour, they were fabulous. they ended with the last track on cobra and the house turned the discoball on for it. totally wonderful classic live concert moment for me.

my personal favorite are the ones i bought first, MAQ and cobra. but the groop have a rich tapestry of records, it really is a damn solid discography.

The time that stands out to me is ETK tour during "Percolator". When the songs winds up to the loud climactic part, it suddenly sounded like the whole mix was going through some insane analogue synth distortion. It was completely nuts!

i was not crazy about dots and loops at the time but i revisited it a few years ago and it's really damn solid, "miss modular" especially has a breathtaking arrangement.

I don't think the Prodigy had external inputs fwiw