Stereolab: Classic or Dud

Cobra and Phases is my favorite by far, I prefer the Groop's records from ETK on over the earlier heavy distorted drone stuff but it's all pretty amazing, from the Low-Fi EP up thru Not Music.

and yeah while those artists were unique and strange in their own way (and collaborated with the Group), Stereolab were completely in their own universe.

I like O'Hagans string arrangements for other bands, but I'm not into his own music with The High Llamas. I'm not a fan of Tortoise or O'Rourke at all.

(xpost)

given that MAQ is one of your favorite albums of the 90s, I'm a little baffled that you rate a bunch of posts that conclude this band is "dud" (or "mostly dud") Turrican.

The thing that most/all of those posts have in common is the opinion that up to 1997 they were great, and afterwards not-so-great, which happens to be an opinion I share.

I agree with that thesis but as Ned pointed out in 2001,they've got a massive amount of one-offs, compilations tracks and collaborations that are fascinating and very different than their contemporary albums, all the way up to the end if their career.

their mini-albums / post-LP singles especially (thinking of First of the Microbe Hunters and Fluorescences, which should've been on ETK or D&L - their one hit wonder in another universe).

Agreed. Their EPs are like little universes unto themselves. I've been meaning to make a playlist of them in order, unlike the way the "Oscillons" box mixed them all up.

The only album they released which is less than great is the final album Not Music. Even it is good but it somehow sounds unfinished and tossed together and it's the only one with kinda an ugly cover.

Not Music has the ugly cover?? I love it, looks like vintage Stereolab... Chemical Chords is the one that's garish and remarkably bad. Looks like a Matt & Kim album.

not music is tossed together cuz it's a continuation of material left off of the vastly superior "chemical chords". not music is still a-ok tho

I can't look at the album cover without reading it as "Snot Music". Has some good tracks though...

the opener "Everybody's Weird Except Me" is in my Stereolab top 10

Among their shorter form works, let us not overlook Music From the Amorphous Body Study Centre - one of the few times I have tracked down a rare release and it has been absolutely worth the effort. Not that it's hard to get anymore of course.

disagree with the revive based on sound dust alone, can't think of a more perfect album for fall/winter, different vibe than their catalog in a fine way

moodles also OTM re Pram

tortoise is great but i don't see the connection to stereolab

Covering and packaging such a disparate range of sounds and influences and references in such a consistently coherent way is a singular achievement

shakey otm here

problem with moodles' list is that it only covers one aspect of stereolab's sound

high llamas are fine but always struck me as one-dimensional compared to stereolab

I'd be even less charitable but that seems fair

I dearly love Sound-Dust, way more than any other post-ETK record of theirs, they let some cracks show and the emotion bleeds through

Just to be clear, I'm not saying those bands necessarily sound like Stereolab, but they are part of overlapping scenes, have collaborated, and share general aesthetic outlooks.

On John Peels festive 50, Tortoise's DJed got interrupted with a burst of Stereolab. At that point, there didn't seem much to connect the two.

First 7 messages in this thread snotty as hell. So glad it's 2017.

(Love Dots and Cobra to bits)

I don't really pretend to understand what the first 7 messages are saying, but I agree with Turrican inasmuch as I adore everything up to and including ETK but got off the bus with Dots, which sounded as boring as hell to me, as did everything after.

tortoise is great but i don't see the connection to stereolab

Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Millions Now Living share quite a bit stylistically, obv McEntire's production on ETK and the steve reich motorik of the tortoise album come from the same place and time.

TS: john cage bubblegum vs steve reich motorik

Pram are definitely the best (perhaps only?) point of comparison, not least in terms of that continual opening-up of the aesthetic over the course of the nineties.

I reckon Sound-Dust and especially Margarine Eclipse are excellent, but I stopped buying Stereolab records after that on the basis of some vague sense that I “had enough”, and I suspect that is a big part of many people’s sense that the band fell off quality wise - less to do with the actual quality of the albums and more to do with whether you feel there’s anything left to learn from them.

I was a heavy-duty McCarthy fan in the old days and only dipped in to Stereolab now and again through the 90s - my musical tastes and attention were elsewhere. I then married into a complete run of Stereolab LPs and have therefore got to know their work more or less all at once, and not in any order. I agree with Tim F - I like some of their records more than others but for me there's no steadily golden or un-golden periods.

The more Sean O' exerted his influence, the more I liked their albums. This all comes to a head on Sound Dust, which is one of my favorite albums of all time--the brilliant arrangements push it over the edge.

Broadcast have a lot in common w/ Stereolab, even when they don't sound the same. It's like the same hipster appropriation game but with different sources.

I've never posted on this thread. huh.

Saint Etienne have a lot in common with Stereolab!

On Super Electric (Switched On), is she saying Bones/Flesh or Bombs/Flash? I always thought she was saying 'some see the bombs, before they see the flash, some see the flash, before they see the bombs'. but google says its bones/flesh.

Pretty sure it's bones and flesh

classic later stereolab
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H652WrVSiLI

That's the only song on Fab Four Suture I think is great, and it's really, really great.

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