The future of Stereolab

I'm very strongly considering going to this with my son. Death Grips, King Gizzard, and My Bloody Valentine are like his dream lineup.

Those were last year's performers, FYI

Uh oh. Well that changes things...

i saw their second-to-last U.S. show in 2008, i guess. Richard Swift opened. : /

Please god let there be a full U.S. tour. I never got to see Stereolab and never thought I would.

I did not attend the 2018 Desert Daze since I really haven't gone to a major music fest since Lollapalooza was a touring entity. But the lineup looked really good and a friend of mine performed in the area where they were doing ambient sets. I might actually go to this one.

I was there, and despite some bad calls on logistics and an electrical storm that ended Tame Impala after less than 15 minutes, the Lake Perris site was actually a good one (seeing that big storm come across the lake at us was wild) and the lineup was great. (They did put Ty Segall and White Fence on for the last set of the festival at around 2:30 Monday morning, so also not ideal)

Not to throw cold water on this reunion, I'm eager to see them too, but their last tour was easily the weakest of many that I saw. They got out of sync on a couple songs,which was a bit of a trainwreck, and they seemed to lack passion overall.

I enjoyed that last tour! (Which was more than 10 years ago.) Amazing great career-spanning setlist.

yeah, the 2008 show i saw was fantastic

Yeah the last time I saw them, I felt that the band had adjusted to the inevitable loss of Mary and had found a good new approach, whereas the tour before that -- the one that was the first after her death -- you could tell that her absence still hung heavy.

I think I didn't like how male-centric the later versions of the band got. I loved Mary and was devastated when she died, but I think they should've tried to replace her. Maybe they weren't interested or just felt like she was irreplaceable, but that dynamic was very important to who they were as a band, especially in a live setting.

assuming they'll form a similar lineup this time, but if they were to look for another female vocalist, does anyone come to mind we may already know?

Margaret Fiedler?

Mary Hampton, who sang on the 2nd Imitation Electric Piano album would be good, or maybe Rosie from Pram?

Morgane Lhote is still making music

Her absence from Stereolab was also significant, she was their best keyboard player.

while we're here, never seen this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJRb-5Gh3wc

Very nice, don't think I've ever seen any of that either.

Yeah, I have an old VHS comptape bought at a record fair, lots of live bits, vids and interviews. This looks much like it came from that, quality wise.

"Yeah the last time I saw them, I felt that the band had adjusted to the inevitable loss of Mary and had found a good new approach, whereas the tour before that -- the one that was the first after her death -- you could tell that her absence still hung heavy."

I miss her voice

from all the live recordings I've heard, she had remarkably good pitch/voice control

I recently learned that Gina Morris (Stereolab's original co-singer from 1990-1992, NME writer) is now in Australia (where Mary, her replacement, was from).

Interesting. In Melbourne rather than Queensland, I see. Married the dude from the Paradise Model, who toured with Stereolab in 1998! (Though she wouldn't have been in the entourage on that tour, presumably.)

Far out, the Paradise Motel guys were all friends of mine when the band started out. And I was a Stereolab obsessive.

Stereolab are confirmed to play the Pitchfork Festival on July 20th 2019.

Huh.

7" Alternate Mix version of "Wow and Flutter" now available on streaming services. According to Tim, he wishes this version had been on MAQ. Definitely more driving and dense than the album version.

I like the original version. I feel like they lost something by getting away from the simpler driving banging it out stuff. A happy medium would've been best? Regardless glad I signed up for this mailing list, the last Lab report was epic.

the early version of French Disco on these new reissues is also way better than the original single version, crunchier and more driving

Listening to the new release of TRNBWA on spotify. They did a fantastic job with the remaster, it sounds so much clearer than the original.

Transona Five on new MAQ is a bit longer, with an actual ending instead of cutting mid-jam into the next track.

Similarly, Des Etoiles Electroniques also goes longer then stops instead of fading out.

Cool. Anything interesting among the bonus material?

I haven't listened to all of it, but lots of demo versions, plus some extended jams and alternate mixes from TRNBWA.

Just got my vinyl copies. Really, really nice. The went all out with these. I particularly love that they have full song by song liner notes, plus full lyrics for all songs for the first time. I've been wondering about the lyrics on some of these for the past 25 years.

yeh I got the vinyl for both yesterday, nice package, didn't realize the obi was made out of 2inch master tape.
Is this the first time the lyrics have been officially printed? Most of the stuff I got wrong turned out to be in French lol.

The originals had lyrics for about half the songs, these add the rest, although there are some little gaps here and there.

are the reissues like $30

Going for about $25 on Amazon right now.

I didn't match five Clives ;_;

So, is it "Bubble Withdrawal" or wot?

Gahhhh I didn't want to buy new versions of these but they sound great

I didn’t get any liner notes with my vinyl edition of MAQ but a PDF of them does come with the digital version, so I’ve got them at least. Did get the scratch card - haven’t defaced it yet though ( nervous LOL )

This "Melochord Seventy-Five" variant on MAQ is close to unrecognisable, and a bit fabulous IMHO.

Jeff, if you got the new vinyl release of MAQ, it should've come with a big poster featuring the album cover on one side and liner notes on the other. If it didn't have it, I'd consider sending it back and getting a different copy.

Thanks, Moodles. I may just email Pikey and see if I can get it sent separately. I've seen on twitter that others have had problems, e.g. no received Disc 1 but two Disc 3s.

oh man i need these

Differences between the reissue and the original version:

Transient:
"Pause" is 8s longer, it fades out just a little later
"Analogue Rock" is 25s longer, it doesn't fade out

Mars:
"Three-Dee Melodie" is 6s longer, it fades out just a little later
"Transona Five" is 50s longer, it ends properly instead of abruptly
"Des Etoiles Electroniques" is 42s longer and doesn't fade out
"Three Longer Laters" is 14s later and adds something around 1:20 as the fade at the end is the same
"International Colouring Contest" is 8s longer, it fades out on the last note rather than the "bop bop bop"s
"The Stars Our Destination" is 59s longer, it fades out much later
"Fiery Yellow" is 6s longer - just extra bird sounds

I'm usually against this sort of tinkering with history but I think these changes are all positive, and in a few cases a notable improvement.

I have mixed feelings about them. They are interesting to hear, but aren't the definitive versions to me. Kind of a Star Wars extended edition syndrome going on.