The future of Stereolab

This seems to be a popular view of Stereolab and not one I subscribe to at all. Their scamper away from the indie disco dancefloor down ever-narrowing corridors of fussy detail and texture mirrors my own shift in tastes, and as a result I've loved most of their records (especially Sound-Dust and the last quarter of everyone's favourite one to knock, ...Milky Night).

That said, an end to Stereolab now, after Mary's tragic death, would seem appropriate, but there are unpleasantly humdrum things like brand identity and paying the mortgage to think about.

On the contrary, they aren't fun enough

Agreed, this is why I sold Dots & Loops which gradually revealed itself to be not much fun at all.

This could be cool. I remember an Autechre remix (of a song I can't recall) that was completely out of the ordinary for them, and very good. Maybe they should hook up with Matmos or something.

Yeah that could have gone further...although like I said I don't think the D&L melodies are quite up to snuff.

Madness! There are some flaccid moments sure, but "Super Falling Star", "Mellotron", "Orgiastic", etc... I ask you?

Am I still the only person who actually thinks Emperor Tomato Ketchup has been the least durable record so far?

Laetitia may be impatient with fans -- after a hiatus they produce Sound Dust which is such a good record -- so consistent (i love roughly every second song) -- having heard loops and milky i say it is their best album after tomato, perhaps the culmination of that direction in their sound

that tv program Cold Feet had a millenium special episode that reprised cul de sac perfectly, since the drift/ island/ end metaphor worked perfectly for the 'end of time' hoop-la surrounding 0/0/2000 and the possibilities of ths show drifting, out to sea or beached, which it sure ended up doing, even if they didn't think they were drifting then

i liked those promo photos of stereolab, with the power poles vertically alligned with the pictures perspective -- like harry lime as the giant (film) wheel comes to a stop over occupied vienna, a snapshot, on the road to the castle or back ? waiting for the flood ? (i don't stereolab are misanthropic, the fans tiny dots or dust, as if viewed from harry's perspective)

i like this album art, the indication of a peak, however insular, an acknowledgement by the band that they may well be too disconnected from their audience yet wishing to take the chicago computer collaborations to a decent conclusion .. i bet they knew sound dust was make or break time, if not for the group then at least for that sound, which surely they got right on this album tens times more so than on the two albums seemingly leading in that direction, validating for me those experiments along the way -- good on them for acknowledging the alienating potential, yet admitting that this was the peak of that stereolab at least

yes, i think they will go looking for other peaks, somewhere else (Lionel Stander did get to work in hollywood again, after all)

maybe the boo-boos will have to go and a new angle for the lyrics taken with both Marie's terrible departure and the band learning the hard lessons of producing something so good by their own standards even if these didn't meet the demands of their audience -- the artistic journey has been completed -- that concept in light of Marie's death is almost horribly prophetic in a spooky new way, beyond their worst dreams i imagine (is Polanski a real king midas of horror and despair ? dark forces ?) (i do not wish to trivialise _anything_ in saying this)

of course the album + art stands on it's own feet as beautiful music with a variety of sentiment -- most of the band can return to the main land and pursue some other groove -- after a presumably respectful period of meditation and change of trade-name

"hiatus"

http://www.stereolab.co.uk/news/

Perhaps a necessary thing, really.

diminishing returns for a while now

Question: is the future of Stereolab any different than the past of Stereolab?

:( At least Chemical Chords 2 will still come out (and I'm glad I saw them this last tour)

yeah, me too! their show last fall was wonderful. still, if anyone deserves a break, it's probably them. they've never gone more than a year or two without an album over the past 20 years, have they?

they've never gone more than a year or two without an album over the past 20 years, have they?

There were a couple multi-year gaps in between Sound-Dust, Margerine Eclipse, and Chemical Chords though I think the box set comes in there somewhere.

yeah, maybe i'm just thinking that there are always various collections coming out in between records -- never seemed like they disappeared for any significant amount of time.

They were great when I saw them live last year. Like, really great, as much fun as the first time I saw them. If this is one of those permananent breaks then they are going out with a bang, at least as far as live music is concerned. I don't think I have any of their albums from the last ten years, but live performance is at least as important to me.

My thoughts on seeing them in September -- if that's the last time I'll ever see them, then the last song I ever saw them do was a great version of "Jenny Ondioline."

It was reissued (not remastered) a couple of years ago. Seems like Lo Fi has always been available.

the vinyl is getting pretty expensive:

https://www.discogs.com/Stereolab-Low-Fi/release/222171

It's amazing that the Cat's Miaow split and that Nurse With Wound thingy are still lost in the wilderness. Things aren't inaccessible in quite the same way as they were before '90s volumes, but I've been naively waiting more than half a lifetime for hear those via a subsequent Switched On. The decision to make 40% of Vol 4 a reissue of their weakest album (an EP mainly "in '90s electronica terms", OTM) is mildly offensive in this context lol.

yeah Simple Headphone Mind is so freakin good

lol I bought the Cat's Miaow split for the Cat's Miaow song at the time

Pretty sure that was the first time I heard of CW. They roolz innit. Their track from the 7" has been on a compilation for decades now, LOL

a reissue of their weakest album

Maybe they think it's too weak to reissue on its own.

SHM is downloadable from NWW's bandcamp, at around the price of one of these switched on CD comps.

Microb Hunters is possibly the Stereolab release I have listened to the most, I had it on repeat for a month or two, much of this is down to the time and place I was at though.

"I Feel the Air (of Another Planet)" would likely still go in my top 10 though.

picturing a Viz strip called Micro Bunters rn, abt dozens of tiny, miniaturized, rotund schoolboys

_a reissue of their weakest album_

OTM

Microbe Hunters is a solid EP, and I'm glad that I can now own it on vinyl. I was initially unimpressed with the inclusion of Amorphous on Aluminum Tunes, but am similarly thankful for it these days.

Lo-Fi isn't really very good, especially compared to the other stuff they recorded at that session

maybe I'm just mad I spent a lot for the 10" all those years ago and it was a mispressing with side A on both sides of the record

i like microbe hunters & dont mind having it in the set just on the basis of consolidating their discography onto affordable vinyl. id rather have it as part of this $30 set than if they excluded it and then charged $30 for it as a standalone reissue

I like the Lo-Fi challop ;-) I'm not all that familiar with it but have listened on YouTube while dithering over spending about a tenner on the CD (it's generally gone up since then) and not been sufficiently won over.

aw, I love it. probably my favorite EP of theirs

iirc Low Fi was Mary's debut which makes it notable. In retrospect I don't remember loving it as much as the pre-Mary singles at the time... though I'd need to revisit as this era was almost 30 years ago. How did Low Fi fare in the Stereolab poll?

It's probably my favorite ep as well -- it's got all the sides of 92-era Lab on one slab (a VU ripoff, some political lyrics I didn't comprehend at age 19, noisy drone loop, etc). But if it were replaced with "mountain" and "john cage bubblegum" repeated on both sides I probably wouldn't complain.

_a reissue of their weakest album_

Yep, I'd concur with that - Microbe Hunters was the final straw for me, I was convinced it was all over until Sound dust made everything okay again.

Now & again I give it a spin to see if I'd completely misjudged (the cobra & phases syndrome) and every time it sounds like an endless conveyor belt of bland jelly mould filler

last 2 mins of Elektro from Lo-Fi are so good, I wish that MBVish guitar that comes in the end went on for longer
would love a vinyl pressing of Oscillons but it's probably impractical, it would be what, 4 LPs? 5?

Love Microbe Hunters, and Outer Bongolia is a top three track of theirs imo. But no need to include it here when it's so ubiquitous as a second hand CD. A vinyl reissue would be nice.

Yeah I ended up with two CD copies myself, without trying.

Lol I've bought at least 3 CD copies or maybe even 4, because it's always like $2.

Ha, thoroughly enjoying microbe hunters, I take it all back. In what universe is it an ep tho....

household names ffs

nomus et phusis, retrograde mirror form <3

Microbe Hunters might be their least essential release but it still has great songs like “I Feel the Air of Another Planet" and "Retrograde Mirror Form" which would justify - at least for me - to buy it separately.

Saying it’s their least essential release doesn’t mean it’s bad. I’d actually recommend it on that basis alone; if you think this is how they sound at their most uninspired, imagine how the rest of their discography sounds like.

I see "Dimension M2" has been released as a "single", in so far as that means anything these days; it's on Spotify. Nice enough. From the 2005 Disko Cabine comp (Stereo Total, Etienne Charry and a bunch of other folks I've never heard of).

Stereolab/NWW falling out well-documented, I think (maybe that's all water under the bridge), but SHM isn't likely to appear on a Stereolab comp. I wish I hadn't ruined my Uilab 12" by trying to clean it.

SHM/tripping is $10 on NWW bandcamp page as previously mentioned, as are the other collabs (which i think ate all on previous SO comps anyway). shorter track has been out digitally before iirc. might even have got mine from mike.

i've checked and my uilab cd is sitting over there between the Turn On cd and Ultra Vivid Scene. probably haven't listened to it in 15 years.

(yes, SHM on 20 years of Wire comp and 30 years of Rough Trade comp)

Turn On! I'd forgotten about that. I assume you're not using Unicode ordering on your CDs, so all your U2 is down the end, before the Vs. :)

slander.

(actually, i do have blood red sky and war, both on vinyl, maybe both still in GL20, but either way they aren't filed with the cds. i think there may be a track or two on charity cds)

xxp btw AFAIK the 10:40 version of SHM on the Wire 20 comp is the same as what's on The Swinging Reflective i.e. an edit of Trippin' With The Birds. I don't know what's on the Rough Trade xomp but it's likely to be the same.

I'm going to re-evaluate Low-Fi, let's see if I love it now.

SHM b/w Trippin has been my favorite Stereolab thing since a decade ago at least (and probably favorite NWW thing). Do they have more stuff that sounds similar?

NWW's "Cooloorta Moon" EP, "Rock 'n' Roll Station" CD and maybe the "Huffin' Rag Blues" CD come closest IMO

Today’s Lab Report mentions that work is now starting on Switched On 5.

Great! Hopefully that'll clear most of the remaining decks.

my LP copy of vol 4 should be arriving today :)

"Electrically Possessed" is out and I must say that the Microbe material fits in well. I don't think I'd heard it since it came out and since then I've become more familiar with the original texts that Stereolab cribbed from, it all works very nicely for me now.

The Microbe material might get a bit of rehabilitation from being included here. It has been undervalued.

got my limited colour vinyl copy today.
my name is written (v. neatly!) in ink along the inner spine, didn't know they were doing that - is it a reselling countermeasure or something?

Still waiting on my CD copy.

Got my bog-standard 2CD digipack this weekend. I've bought the other reissues on vinyl, but for those I usually just had the original CD while in this case I have several of the original 7"s. Includes a sticker with a checklist (yes, Cliff... I did my duty) and a 10% off coupon for the website. Would prefer that the track info wasn't all under the disc trays, as you need to remove both discs in order to learn the sources of either one. Would've preferred a mini-gatefold with inner sleeves, but maybe those are more expensive to produce.

The personalization on the color vinyl versions was a reselling countermeasure, but since then they've announced a new way to deal with limited editions that is not personalization, so I'm not sure how successful it was. I'm still waiting on my personalized version to arrive.

i'm out of the loop. i didn't even know this got released. instant purchase.

okay, finally got this and listening, and jeez was the microbobe hunters stuff always this good??? i guess it got lost for me between cobra and sound-dust pretty quickly but man it sounds great right now. otherwise, lots of "new to me" rarities. all great.

god “household names” is so so great!!