The future of Stereolab

they seem to have developed a new way of approaching some of these songs with a light touch then suddenly revving them up into overdrive, very interesting way of playing with dynamics

along these lines, Blue Milk was the highlight of the 2019 show i saw + Andy Ramsay is the MVP

he's always been such a key part of their sound, and yet it seems like he's stepping it up, playing more with dynamics, throwing all kinds of sequences and triggers into the mix along with the drums, just a total champ

Absolutely. So long as he's there with Tim and Laetitia, it is Stereolab and I will always happily support them and see them.

Amen!

Yeah, I love the ‘overdrive’ moments. I remember even ‘Ping Pong’ went absolutely haywire live in 2019.

So way upthread Gerald posted this:

Given this, there's still this out there. Most of these are alt versions of released tracks so not that crucial:
1. Super Falling Star (Moog mix) - from Volume 4 compilation
2. High Expectations (demo)
3. The Seeming And The Meaning (demo) - these 2 from the Spacewatch flexi
4. I'm Going Out Of My Way (WHFS session) - from "Inside Dave's Garage" split single
5. The Extension Trip (radio session)
6. The Eclipse
7. Jenny Ondioline (live) - Upsapalooza comp
8. Cadriopo (full version)- from Fugu split single
9. Persolator (live) - Phoenix: The Album comp
10. Endless Summer (as Microlab) - from "Microstonia - Reprovisers" compilation
11. St. Elmo's Fire (radio)
12. Less Time
13. St. Elmo's Fire (Red Corona)
14. St. Elmo's Fire (Spatio-Dynamic)
15. Impulse Rah!
16. St. Elmo's Fire (Snow) - these 6 as Uilab from "St. Elmo's Fire" collaboration with Ui
17. Miss Modular (Automator mix)
18. Contranatura (Prelude To The Autumn Of A Faun mix by Kid Loco) - these 3 from "Miss Modular Remixes" EP
19. Rainbo Conversation (Russel Simins mix) - from the "Miss Modular" US promo
20. Chinese Whispers (Stereolab mix) - from "Chinese Whispers" compilation
21. Untitled / 008 - from Thurston Moore's "Root" compilation
22. Cache Cache (Monade) - from collaboration with Brigitte Fontaine
23. Ticker Tape Of The Unconscious (Thievery Corporation remix) - from Thievery Corporation's "Abductions & Reconstructions" compilation
24. Brain Drain - from "Collaborations 2: Constant Friction" compilation
25. Négatités - from "Yeti 1" compilation
26. Alternative 1 (with Hairy Butter)
27. Alternative 2 (with Hairy Butter)
28. Alternative 3 (with Hairy Butter)
29. Mudra (V/A - Dimension Mix)
30. Valley Hi! (live) - FBI: The Live Feed comp
31. Neon Beanbag (Atlas Sound Southern Baptist remix) - Not Music JP bonus track

So I have a slew of these but not all -- here's what I'm missing:

5. The Extension Trip (radio session)
7. Jenny Ondioline (live) - Upsapalooza comp
8. Cadriopo (full version)- from Fugu split single
9. Persolator (live) - Phoenix: The Album comp
19. Rainbo Conversation (Russel Simins mix) - from the "Miss Modular" US promo
26. Alternative 1 (with Hairy Butter)
27. Alternative 2 (with Hairy Butter)
28. Alternative 3 (with Hairy Butter)
29. Mudra (V/A - Dimension Mix)
30. Valley Hi! (live) - FBI: The Live Feed comp
31. Neon Beanbag (Atlas Sound Southern Baptist remix) - Not Music JP bonus track

Gerald or anyone, any way to share these out? I'm essentially creating a 'Switched On Vol. 6' for myself and kinda interestingly it would all fit on two CDs so maybe one day... (Thinking about how Sonic Youth finally cleared out all those random B-sides and live cuts on singles from the 80s via a Bandcamp comp.)

here's the Upsapalooza "Jenny Ondioline"

https://www.mediafire.com/file/x6qziqmrnuqqixm/1-01_Stereolab_-_Jenny_Ondioline.flac/file

I know I’ve got that Miss Modular promo somewhere, I’ll see if I can rip a nice version of that track

Absolutely. So long as he's there with Tim and Laetitia, it is Stereolab and I will always happily support them and see them.

If it's Tim, Laetitia, Andy Ramsay and your gran' on the Grodeck Whipperjenny, it's Stereolab.

Thanks Sleeve! All help appreciated!

Anyone who wants these can email me at geraldmcbb (at) hotmail (d0t) com

Anyone want to buy two tickets for the 9:30 Club show in DC Saturday?

Would like them to round out the expanded editions with a Chemical Chords/Not Music 2-disc set, mainly because I never bought them in the first place

Posted this on the wrong thread ... but saw them at Roadrunner in Boston last night, which is a terrific venue. Enjoyable but the absolutely terrible sound (their live sound person's fault as the opener had great sound and a very similar lineup) made the experience a lot less pleasant than it should've been. Current band is pretty tight tho and the song selection was very good.

Defer to Gerald McBoing-Boing for his review as he was also there and much closer to the stage.

The show in Minneapolis had absolutely atrocious sound as well which I considered posting in this thread like 5 times but figured there would be no one to commiserate.

OK gang

what in the holy hell is going on with side 4 of the Dots and Loops 3LP reissue (tracks 8, 9, and 10 on the original CD)?

what is labeled as "Parsec"... is not, and it's 4:35 instead of 5:34 long

then the version of "Ticker-Tape Of The Unconscious" is a full minute shorter, and "Contronature" is maybe 20 seconds shorter

what the heck is going on here, and what is in place of "Parsec"? nothing about this on the Discogs page, which has had helpful breakdowns on some differences w/previous reissues

I'm going to have to go back and listen but they messed around with track lengths throughout the deluxe edition, mostly adding bits of new material here and there

yeah but it's a totally different song!! I am so confused, any insight is most appreciated

I bought that deluxe ed digitally from Bleep and the track listing is
1 Brakhage 5:31
2 Miss Modular 4:29
3 The Flower Called Nowhere 5:15
4 Diagonals 5:15
5 Prisoner of Mars 4:22
6 Rainbo Conversation 4:46
7 Refractions in the Plastic Pulse 17:32
8 Parsec 5:35
9 Ticker-Tape of the Unconscious 4:46
10 Contronatura 9:04
(plus 11 more tracks)
so exactly the same at the original release, more or less - the vinyl must differ?

The show in Minneapolis had absolutely atrocious sound as well which I considered posting in this thread like 5 times but figured there would be no one to commiserate.

Sounds like something technical went way off the rails. If it's a digital board, could it be that they had levels saved from soundcheck that failed to load correctly?

Everything sounded completely normal and clear at the show I went to.

I didn't notice any sound issues standing up front in Boston. Frankly, I was just closing my eyes and losing myself in the music. Observations:

Tim & Laetitia stood as far apart as possible. I forget if that's any different than the old days.

The bassist fellow took over Mary's backing vocals and did very well!

The drumming was OK but not as powerful as the material needed.

Favorite tracks were "UHF", "Mountain", a way too short "Jenny O" and the amazing encore surprise of "Simple Headphone Mind".

Not a great deal of stage presence, L's simple dance moves were really endearing though.

The couple of times I saw Stereolab pre-break Tim stood in the middle of the band surrounded by everyone else basically. So yeah, different from those times for sure.

I saw the Minneapolis show too and also found the sound unpleasant but wondered if it were somehow mixed for earplugs (which I forgot to bring; the music sounded better when I yawned, though). I appreciate hearing that it wasn’t just me.

Huh. Sound was perfectly fine in SF and the mixer there, who I gather was the tour mixer, is an acquaintance of a musician friend, Sarah Hennies, who was thrilled to note she was doing that job. Strange!

Yes, that's who it was in Boston. Sounds from her CV like she is super experienced musician/composer. Maybe they're dependent on whatever board the venue provides, I dunno. But hopefully they clean it up as the tour goes on. Not everyone wants to press themselves up against the stage like Gerald McBoing Boing!

So I listened to side 4 of the dots & loops expanded edition and the first song was definitely Parsec. Don't really know about track length changes though.

wtf

let me post what I have

here is the first minute or so of what begins my side 4 and purports to be "Parsec"

https://soundcloud.com/sleeve-the-dj/untitled?si=69f892dfeea846be90505ebb60bc5c54

oops that got removed, Moodles I will ILXmail you

So, decided to do a little Stereolab review project...but not about Stereolab specifically:

https://theshfl.com/guide/the-stereolab-halo

awesome

I haven’t had a chance to really dig in, but great concept - there’s so much to mine just outside of the official Stereolab canon.

Really is and I surprised even myself -- a ton of things I had no idea existed.

Lots of great albums on that list

Looks great. Richard Harrison played bass with the 'lab though, not drums/percussion.

Hm, must have misread something! Will correct.

also it seems to mention 2002 in the first para? surely that's 2022?

i love copyediting

Great piece Ned, lots of stuff I hadn't known about at all. Curious to check out that Ghost Power, had no idea!

Wow, nice article! I have about half of those, but it has inspired me to dig deeper - thank you!!
One minor thing (this is extremely nit-picky) - I thought Laetitia's singing debut with McCarthy was earlier than *Banking...*
Just did a little Googling, and this page says the *Get a Knife Between Your Teeth* EP is from April 1990 (on which Laetitia is credited), but this page says *Banking...* came out in August 1990.

IIRC the recent reissue boxset credit her with being on the At War EP. from 1989 and even the earlier Should the Bible Be Banned EP but it feels like an error.

Either way, by Enraged, they were starting to experiment more and showing the seeds of Stereolab.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb2ENkP7t4M

I will keep that in mind re McCarthy -- I've kept updating poor Caleb at Shfl all my glitches today so maybe down the road! But thanks all for the corrections, and of course the kind words.

Any idea what they're ending with on their current tour, assuming they're playing the same-ish set? "Contact"?

Super-Electric when I saw them in Sept. Encored with Simple Headphone Mind and French Disko iirc.

Ta, everything.

It's a bit of a blur but I think they ended their main set with Super Electric and then played three songs as an encore. Tim looked really into Super Electric and the last song of the encore. Refractions in the Plastic Pulse was particularly good.

Ta, everything.

It's a bit of a blur but I think they ended their main set with Super Electric and then played three songs as an encore. Tim looked really into Super Electric and the last song of the encore. Refractions in the Plastic Pulse was particularly good.

^ Not sure how that happened. Sorry.

Apparently the last song of the encore was Excursions into oh-ah-oh.

scored used copies of the reissues of ETK and D&L at the local shop. someone must've bought them new and returned them right away, cuz I noticed they were missing from the shelf lol

crazy how good Dots & Loops is. obviously this is no secret to anyone on ilxor.com but for some reason it never clicked with me back in the day.

dig those demos on Side F too. reminds me of the discussion we were having on the Police thread re: "songwriting". for example "Les Yper Sound" is cute in demo form but everything I love about that track is in the production. though I must say a stripped back Stereolab still sounds really good!