Stereolab: Classic or Dud

Oh wow, many thanks to you for the live project!
Also, any advice on finding fellow Lab fans irl? It's hard to do as a non-Brit and a high school student...

this has made my night

Listen, I am desperately trying to relate here, and I finally found someone else who listens to this milk to the ears.
Sure, it may seem funny, but it's also great to have finally found this thread, so I might as well ask you guys to educate me:
What are your thoughts on Aluminium Tunes?

Lots of good tracks, don't listen to it a lot these days, but back when this stuff was coming out on various EPs, it seemed like they were finding new directions every few months.

Definitely seems like it, although personally, I don't mind the transition from krautrock-style jams to more melodic variations. Obviously, Peng! and Fab Four Suture don't really compare, but they're both fun to listen to, in a way.

Pop Quiz was the song that got me into Stereolab

That was five years ago... loved songs here and there (Cybele, Les-Yper, Everybody's Weird Except Me, Anamorphose), but I only became completely obsessed a year or two ago... my favorite is Cobra and Phases by a mile... but I love them all. Such an amazing and unique band.

Moodles' live comp is so great. Outer Bongolia is great on there.

I'll check it out after I get more sleep.
I actually got hooked through The Flower Called Nowhere, and ended up sticking to later songs (Double Rocker, Strobo, most of Margerine and Sound Dust). Pack Yr Romantic Mind is great too.

Honestly though, I just love how lush and sophisticated the synths are, every song is a masterpiece of its own. Combining Moogs and woodwinds is not something you hear every day... unless it's in a Lab song! Still, I wish I could have seen the band develop and not just accept its entire history ex post factum.

Love this band, even if flappy and I will never agree that sound dust is the best ;-)

Getting into a band long after they've disbanded has its advantages - you're able to digest and accept the body of work as a whole and with context and perspective for each piece of work. As with so many bands that changed through their career, there are a lot of people that 'got off the train' so to speak when Stereolab went this way or that way. Seems like that was Dots & Loops for a lot of people. I feel lucky to have been fans of amazing bands as they developed but I went through the same things when they changed, and my attention toward and opinion of the work past a certain point waned, either out of disappointment or exhaustion.

weirdly enough, I was buying lunch today at a local natural food store and as I approached the register "Pack Yr Romantic Mind" came on and it was one of those perfect soundtrack moments, I said "I love Stereolab" to the cashier, they said "oh me too" and we chatted about them for a bit

Hey sleeve, I'm afraid that sort of thing could only happen in Lab heaven...

Flappys right but it's high time to revise the stereolab narrative - their final records are fantastic

I saw lab on the Fab Four Suture tour. Played a lot of their catalog and convincingly switched between the extremes of dots and tracks like jenny oindoline. Mary's backing vocals were replaced by horns in what felt like an affectionate tribute. What I took away from the show was the conviction that a band could mutate from grunge one chord rock and to exotica all within the same breath.

Maybe it's possible that they'll come back sometime after Caverns of Anti Matter settles down? Sadier still makes pretty Lab-ish songs...

God I hope so

I'm guessing that most of you are from the UK? There hasn't really been an American following going, as far as I know.

tim's also making stereolab inflected tracks

https://soundcloud.com/cavern-of-anti-matter/melody-in-high-feedback-tones-coam

hope they figure this shit out

nah I live on the east coast USA & in my small city one of the few things that unites a very diverse, disparate, and at the moment isolated is Stereolab.

*isolated community of musicians & artists

Digging this. The end of John Cage bubblegum is INCREDIBLE.

I'm guessing that most of you are from the UK? There hasn't really been an American following going, as far as I know.

im from Georgia in the USA here and when i got into them 98-99 there were plenty of irl friends super into Stereolab. they have always had a big following in Atlanta and Athens. the biggest Stereolab fans i know are from Marietta and their band is heavily influenced by them

i remember seeing videos on MTV2 and The Box. first time i read their name was in a factoid where they described the writing process of Dots & Loops as being making up the tracks layer-by-layer

another American here, saw them at the Showbox in Seattle, musta been early 2000's? Honestly can't remember but I still have the ticket.

they played La Zona Eosa in Austin when I saw them, probably for a few hundred.
there's a 15 minute version of 'Super Electric' on here!

Alex, don't know if you are looking for the earlier side of the groop, but here are two playlists of early live Stereolab.

1991-1994: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeWPnyT2WYQ-5-z71RsvVcbyQBh1T6xK2
1995-1996: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeWPnyT2WYQ-VRdSWFULNRDh1ocaZuFSm

i saw them at AS220 in Providence in '95 iirc. needless to say it was amazing.

They really toured the hell out of America

Saw them many times in Boston, Houston, and Austin, plus once at Coachella. They were at peak live power in the ETK - Sound-Dust years. Biggest show I saw was Cobra tour at the Roxy in Boston. Enthusiasm and crowds for their shows seemed to dwindle in later years.

I saw them at the Roxy in Boston as well - can't remember who else was on the bill - Yo La Tengo or Go-Betweens?

I prefer the gig they did at Mama Kin with Air Miami opening, 1995 I think. So loud!

Jersey kid here: guess I should wait around until Sadier is touring again, her Silencio album was pretty good...

i saw Sadier's solo show last summer in Denver — it was really fun! Not a huge crowd, but a very appreciative one. She is a great performer.

xxp

Yes! The Roxy gig was a bit lackluster, maybe too big a venue for them. Mama Kin was probably the best show I've seen them play, possibly best I've seen anyone play, absolutely mind blowing. Also caught them at Middle East and Paradise.

I always forget that they were on the second stage for some of Lollapalooza 1994.

Yup, those were some good shows. Hung around backstage with Tim and Laetitia for part of that.

And yes they toured America quite a bit, one reason why I think they survived on Elektra longer than anyone might have guessed. They regularly put in the effort. Mary's death was, frankly, a near crippling blow, and while the last couple of tours did find a way to present the material in new ways -- I think they finally figured it out in full with the last tour -- something was inevitably gone, never to return.

Saw them at Central Park summerstage with John Cale. Cant remember when.

was it this show?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0ZMkv8D-9w

This is just a silly bit of trivia but this audio samples in this song mention that gig with Stereolab and John Cale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak0LpPxUUAw

I was at a Stereolab gig at St Andrews Hall in Detroit on the Mars Audiac Quintet tour where the opening act had about 15 musicians all playing Moogs.

jeez every time a stereolab thread gets pulled up I go on a new week-long stereolab binge.

Seems like a reasonable response

Did Sonic Boom ever make it over to do his thing with the lab in the US? IIRC it was all unrehearsed, he would just show up at random gigs, set up side stage with a load of analog gear and theremins etc and improvise over their whole set. Wonderful stuff. Saw them do this in Bristol one time with Millions Now Living-era Tortoise opening. When he wasn’t on stage, Sonic was glued to the venue’s pinball machine the entire time.

Sadly that was the one tour I missed, when Sonic did that -- the ETK tour no less (I was out of town so at least there was an excuse).

Stereolab are probably my fave band next to broadcast and pram

Saw them in 1994 (MAQ) with Trumans Water and then in 1996 (ETK) with Pram & Sonic Boom. Good times.

Moodles, we hardly cross around here but obv you are the figurehead of Stereolab fandom here. Yet in all these years I *never* knew about the live comps you'd made, and I've enjoyed for what, hundreds of hours, surely. They are great, just never knew you'd compiled them. <3

Just to be clear, I did not make the comp, just helped to preserve it. It was made by members of the Stereolab forum, which is where I spent most of my online time before drifting over here.