Stereolab
Encyclopedia
Stereolab are an alternative music band formed in 1990 in London, England. The band originally comprised songwriting team Tim Gane
(guitar
/keyboard
s) and Lætitia Sadier
(vocals/keyboards/guitar), both of whom remained at the helm across many lineup changes. Other long-time members include Mary Hansen
(backing vocals/keyboards/guitar), who played with the group from 1992 until her accidental death in 2002, and Andy Ramsay
(drums
), who joined in 1993, and who is still in the official line-up.
Called "one of the most fiercely independent and original groups of the Nineties", Stereolab were one of the first bands to be termed "post-rock
". Their primary musical influence was 1970s krautrock
, which they combined with lounge
, 1960s pop
, and experimental pop music. They were noted for their heavy use of vintage electronic keyboards, and their sound often overlays a repetitive "motorik
" beat with female vocals sung in English or French. Stereolab often incorporated socio-political themes into their lyrics. Some critics say the group's lyrics carry a strong Marxist message, and Gane and Sadier admit to being influenced by the Surrealist and Situationist cultural and political movements. Gane is sceptical of labels such as "Marxist pop", and defends the band against accusations of "sloganeering".
Although many of the band's albums have been underground hits, they never found larger commercial success. The band were released from their recording contract with Warner Bros. Records
when Warner's imprint Elektra Records
folded. The release was reportedly due to poor record sales, and since then Stereolab's self-owned label, Duophonic Records
, has signed a distribution deal with Too Pure
. Duophonic holds the copyrights to the band's recordings, and on the label the band have released many limited-edition records. In 2009, Stereolab announced via their website that they were going on indefinite hiatus.
, a band from Essex
, England known for their left-wing politics. Gane met the French-born Lætitia Sadier at a McCarthy concert in Paris and the two quickly fell in love. The musically-inclined Sadier was disillusioned with the rock scene in France and soon moved to London to be with Gane and to pursue her career. After three albums, McCarthy broke up in 1990 and Gane immediately formed Stereolab with Sadier (who had also contributed vocals to McCarthy's final album) and ex-Chills
bassist Martin Kean
. The group's name was taken from a division of Vanguard Records
demonstrating hi-fi effects.
Gane and Sadier, along with future Stereolab manager Martin Pike, created a record label called Duophonic Super 45s—which, along with later offshoot Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks, would be commonly known as "Duophonic". The 10 inch vinyl EP
Super 45
was the group's and the label's first release, and was sold through mail order and the Rough Trade Shop
in London. Super 45s band-designed album art and packaging was the first of many customized and limited-edition Duophonic records. In a 1996 interview in The Wire
Gane calls the "do-it-yourself" aesthetic behind Duophonic "empowering", and says that by releasing one's own music "you learn; it creates more music, more ideas". Other independent bands such as Tortoise
, Broadcast
, and Labradford
would also release material on Duophonic.
Stereolab followed up with another EP, Super-Electric, and a single, "Stunning Debut Album" (not actually their debut or an album). The band's early material was rock and guitar-oriented; of Super-Electric, Jason Ankeny wrote in Allmusic that "Droning guitars, skeletal rhythms, and pop hooks—not vintage synths and pointillist melodies—were their calling cards ..." In 1992 Stereolab's first full-length album, Peng!
, and first compilation, Switched On
, were released on independent label Too Pure. Around this time, the lineup coalesced around Gane and Sadier plus vocalist Mary Hansen, drummer Andy Ramsay, bassist Duncan Brown, keyboardist Katharine Gifford, and guitarist Sean O'Hagan
of the 1980s famed Microdisney
duo. Hansen, an Australian, had been in touch with Gane since his McCarthy days. After joining, she and Sadier developed a style of vocal counterpoint that distinguished Stereolab's sound until Hansen's death ten years later in 2002. O'Hagan would later leave to form The High Llamas
, but would frequently return to contribute to Stereolab's records.
Beginning with their 1993 EP Space Age Bachelor Pad Music
, the band began to incorporate easy-listening elements into their sound. This release raised Stereolab's profile and landed them a major-label American record deal with Elektra Records. Their next album, 1993's Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements
, was their first American release under Elektra, and became an underground hit in both the U.S. and the U.K. Mark Jenkins commented in The Washington Post
that with the album Stereolab "continues the glorious drones of [their] indie work, giving celestial sweep to [their] garage-rock organ pumping and rhythm-guitar strumming". In the U.K. it was released on Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks, which is responsible for domestic releases of Stereolab's major albums. The year would also see a collaboration with industrial
stalwarts Nurse With Wound
, in the form of the Crumb Duck
EP.
entered at #75 on the UK Singles Chart
. (Over the next three years, four more releases by the band would appear on this chart, ending with the EP Miss Modular
in 1997.) With their 1994 full-length, Mars Audiac Quintet
, Stereolab focused more on pop and less on rock, resulting in what Allmusic described as "what may be the group's most accessible, tightly-written album". Mars Audiac Quintet makes heavy use of vintage electronic instruments, and also contains the single "Ping Pong", which gained press coverage for its allegedly explicitly Marxist lyrics. After releasing a 1995 collection of singles and B-sides called Refried Ectoplasm: Switched On, Vol. 2
, Stereolab followed with an EP titled Music for the Amorphous Body Study Center
. This EP was their musical contribution to an interactive art exhibit put on in collaboration with New York City artist Charles Long.
Stereolab's 1996 album, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, was a critical success and was played heavily on college radio. A record that "captivated alternative rock", it represented Stereolab's "high-water mark" according to music journalists Tom Moon and Joshua Klein, respectively. Krautrock techniques were still present, but the band stirred the pot with hip-hop sounds and complex instrumental arrangements. Stephan Davet of French newspaper Le Monde
claimed to see musical influences as diverse as The Velvet Underground
, Burt Bacharach
, and Françoise Hardy
on the album. John McEntire
of the band Tortoise assisted with production and also played on Emperor Tomato Ketchup, while Katharine Gifford was replaced by Morgane Lhote before its recording, and bassist Duncan Brown by Richard Harrison afterward.
Also in 1996, Stereolab collaborated with Herbie Mann
on the song "One Note Samba/Surfboard" for the AIDS-Benefit album Red Hot + Rio
produced by the Red Hot Organization
.
Dots and Loops
was released in 1997, and was Stereolab's first album to enter the Billboard 200 charts
, peaking at #111. Barney Hoskyns
wrote in Rolling Stone
that with it the group moved "ever further away from the one-chord Velvets drone-mesh of its early days" toward easy listening and Europop. A review in German newspaper Die Zeit
echoed this observation, claiming that in Dots and Loops Stereolab transformed the harder Velvet Underground-like riffs of previous releases into "softer sounds and noisy playfulness". Contributors to the album once again included John McEntire, along with Sean O'Hagan
of The High Llamas
and Jan St. Werner of German electropop duo Mouse on Mars
. A second Nurse With Wound
collaboration, Simple Headphone Mind
, appeared in 1997, and the third release in the "Switched On" series, Aluminum Tunes
, followed in 1998.
The band then took a break from traveling while Gane and Sadier had a child. In 1999, Stereolab's next album appeared, titled Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
. Co-produced by McEntire and American producer Jim O'Rourke
, the album earned mixed reviews for its lighter sound, and peaked at #154 on the Billboard 200. An unsigned NME
review said that "this record has far more in common with bad jazz and progressive rock than any experimental art-rock tradition." In a 1999 The Washington Post article, Mark Jenkins asked Gane about the album's apparent lack of guitars; Gane responded, "There's a lot less upfront, distorted guitar ... But it's still quite guitar-based music. Every single track has a guitar on it." Stereolab added a new bassist, Simon Johns, for the Cobra and Phases Group ... tour.
The full-length Sound-Dust
followed in 2001, and rose to #178 on the Billboard 200. Again featuring producers McEntire and O'Rourke, it was more warmly received than Cobra and Phases Group .... Critic Joshua Klein said that "the emphasis this time sounds less on unfocused experimentation and more on melody ... a breezy and welcome return to form for the British band." Klein also commented that "never has it been harder to discern just what [Sadier] is singing, but rarely has her gibberish sounded so pleasant."
; a compilation of BBC Radio 1
sessions. The year also saw Gane and Sadier end their romantic relationship.
On 9 December 2002, longstanding band member Mary Hansen
was killed when struck by a truck while riding her bicycle. Born in Maryborough, Queensland
, Australia, Hansen earned the most attention for her vocal work with Stereolab, although she also played the guitar and keyboards. The music journalist Pierre Perrone said that Hansen's "playful nature and mischievous sense of humour came through in the way she approached the backing vocals she contributed to Stereolab and the distinctive harmonies she created with Sadier." For the next few months, Stereolab lay dormant as the members grieved. They eventually decided to continue; as Sadier explained in a 2004 interview: "Losing Mary is still incredibly painful ... But it's also an opportunity to transform and move on. It's a new version. We've always had new versions, people coming in and out. That's life." (Future album and concert reviews would mention the effects of Hansen's absence.) In a 2004 interview, Sadier said that "Our dedication to her on the album [2004's Margerine Eclipse
] says, 'We will love you till the end', meaning of our lives. I'm not religious, but I feel Mary's energy is still around somewhere. It didn't just disappear."
The 2003 EP Instant 0 in the Universe
was recorded in France, and was Stereolab's first release following Hansen's death. According to the music journalist Jim DeRogatis, the EP marked a return to their earlier, harder sound—"free from the pseudo-funk moves and avant-garde tinkering that had been inspired by Chicago producer Jim O'Rourke". That year, Sadier's side-project, Monade
, released their debut album Socialisme Ou Barbarie: The Bedroom Recordings. Both the name of the group and the title of the album were references to the work of Greek-French intellectual Cornelius Castoriadis
.
The full-length album Margerine Eclipse
followed in 2004 to generally positive reviews, and peaked at #174 on the US Billboard 200. The track "Feel and Triple" was written in tribute to Hansen; according to Sadier "I was reflecting on my years with her ... reflecting on how we sometimes found it hard to express the love we had for one another." The Observer
s Molloy Woodcraft awarded the album four out of five stars, and described Sadier's vocal performance as "life- and love-affirming", and the record as a whole as "Complex and catchy, bold and beatific." Kelefa Sanneh argued in Rolling Stone that Margerine Eclipse was "full of familiar noises and aimless melodies". Margerine Eclipse was Stereolab's last record on their American label Elektra Records, which closed down in 2004. Future material would be released on Too Pure, the same company which released some of the band's earliest material.
The album was followed by Oscillons from the Anti-Sun
; a 2005 three-CD and one-DVD retrospective of the group's rarer material. Monade's second album, A Few Steps More, also appeared that year. In 2005 and 2006, Stereolab released six limited-edition singles which were collected in Fab Four Suture
, and contained material which Mark Jenkins thought continued the brisker sound of the band's post-Hansen work. Serene Velocity
, a "best-of" compilation focusing on the band's Elektra years, was released in late 2006. By June 2007, Stereolab's lineup comprised Tim Gane, Lætitia Sadier, Andy Ramsay, Simon Johns, Dominic Jeffrey, Joseph Watson, and Joseph Walters. The band had finished the production of their next album, entitled Chemical Chords
, which was released in August 2008 on the 4AD label. The release of the album was followed by an autumn tour of Europe and the United States.
and in April 2009, Pike announced a pause in the band's career together for the time being. After 19 years, he stated they felt it was time to take a rest and move on to new projects.
In November 2010, Not Music
, a collection of unreleased material which was recorded at the same time as Chemical Chords, was released.
instrumentals, overlaid with singsong female vocals and pop melodies. Their records were heavily influenced by the motorik
technique of 1970s krautrock
groups such as Neu!
and Faust
. Tim Gane has supported the comparison: "Neu! did minimalism and drones, but in a very pop way." Stereolab's style also incorporates easy-listening music of the 1950s and '60s. Said Joshua Klein in The Washington Post
, "Years before everyone else caught on, Stereolab was referencing the 1970s German bands Can
and Neu!, the Mexican lounge music master Esquivel
and the decidedly unhip Burt Bacharach
."
The band make use of vintage analog electronic instruments such as the Farfisa
and Vox organ
s, and the Moog synthesizer
, which was featured prominently on 1994's Mars Audiac Quintet. Gane has praised these older instruments for their superior controllability: "We use the older effects because they're more direct, more extreme, and they're more like plasticine: you can shape them into loads of things." Funk, jazz
, and Brazilian music were inspirations, and the sound of minimalist
composers Philip Glass
and Steve Reich
can be found on 1999's Cobra and Phases Group .... Several critics have commented that the band's later work, like Instant 0 in the Universe (2003) and Margerine Eclipse (2004), sound similar to their guitar-driven earlier style.
Lætitia Sadier's bilingual French and English vocals have been a part of Stereolab since the beginning. She writes the group's lyrics, which have a tendency towards Marxist social commentary rather than "affairs of the heart" (in the opinion of music journalist Simon Reynolds
). In reference to Sadier's laid-back delivery, Peter Shapiro wrote in The Wire
that she has all the "emotional histrionics" of 1960s German singer Nico
. Sometimes Sadier will just sing wordlessly along with the music. Before Mary Hansen's death in 2002, she and Sadier would often trade vocals back-and-forth in a singsong manner that has been described as "eerie" and "hypnotic". Critic Jim Harrington commented that Hansen's absence is noticeable on live performances of Stereolab's older tracks, and that their newer songs could have benefited from her backing vocals.
In interviews, Gane and Sadier have discussed their musical philosophy. According to Gane "to be unique was more important than to be good." On the subject of being too obscure, he said in a 1996 interview that "maybe the area where we're on dodgy ground, is this idea that you need great knowledge [of] esoteric music to understand what we're doing." In the same interview Sadier responds to Gane, saying that she "think[s] we have achieved a music that will make sense to a lot of people whether they know about Steve Reich or not." The duo were up-front about their desire to grow the group's sound—for Gane, "otherwise it just sounds like what other people are doing," and for Sadier, "you trust that there is more and that it can be done more interesting."
, Sonic Youth
and My Bloody Valentine. Several critics have said that Stereolab lacked stage presence, arguing that Sadier's vocal delivery was too subdued and that the band tended to play instead of perform its music. Regarding being onstage, Gane has said that "I don't like to be the center of attention ... I just get into the music and am not really aware of the people there. That's my way of getting through it."
interview. Stewart Mason commented in an Allmusic review that the lyrics from the 1997 song "Miss Modular" "sound influenced by the Situationist theory of the 'spectacle'." When asked to explain her intentions in a 1991 Melody Maker
interview, Sadier responded that "Basically I want to change the world. I want to make people think about how they live every day, shake them a bit."
Critics have seen Marxist
allusions in the band's lyrics, and several have gone so far as to call the band itself Marxist. "Ping Pong", a single included on Mars Audiac Quintet
(1994), has been put forward as evidence. In the song, Sadier sings "about capitalism's cruel cycles of slump and recovery" with lyrics that constitute "a plainspoken explanation of one of the central tenets of Marxian economic analysis" (said critics Simon Reynolds
and Stewart Mason, respectively). The song opens with the lines:
Band members have resisted attempts to link the group and its music to Marxism. In a 1999 interview, Gane stated that "none of us are Marxists ... I've never even read Marx." Although Gane admitted that his partner's lyrics touch on political topics, he argued that they do not cross the line into "sloganeering". Sadier herself has mentioned that she has read very little Marx. In contrast, Cornelius Castoriadis, a radical political philosopher but strong critic of Marxism, has been mentioned as a marking influence in her thinking. Her side project's name (Monade
) and their first album's title (Socialisme ou Barbarie) are also references to the work of Castoriadis.
Stereolab's album and song titles occasionally reference avant-garde
political groups and artists. Gane said that the title of their 1999 album Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
contains the names of two Surrealist organizations, "CoBrA
" and "Phases Group". The title of the first song on Dots and Loops, "Brakhage", is a nod to experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage
. Other examples are the 1992 compilation Switched On
, named after a 1969 Wendy Carlos
album, and the 1992 single "John Cage Bubblegum", named after experimental composer John Cage
.
bands Oasis
and Blur
, and defended their music against the charge that it is "nothing but the sum total of its arcane reference points." Stereolab was one of the first groups to be called post-rock
—in a 1996 article, journalist Angela Lewis applied the "new term" to Stereolab and three other bands who have connections to the group. The band's 1996 album Emperor Tomato Ketchup, their "high-water mark" according to critic Joshua Klein, was a critical success and underground hit. Stereolab has also received negative press. Barney Hoskyns
questioned the longevity of their music in a 1996 Mojo
review, saying that their records "sound more like arid experiments than music born of emotional need." In The Guardian
, Dave Simpson stated: "With their borrowings from early, obscure Kraftwerk and hip obtuse sources, [Stereolab] sound like a band of rock critics rather than musicians." Lætitia Sadier's vocals were cited by author Stuart Shea as often being "indecipherable."
A variety of artists—musical and otherwise—have collaborated with Stereolab. In 1995 the group teamed up with sculptor Charles Long for an interactive art show in New York City, for which Long provided the exhibits and Stereolab the music. They have released tracks by and toured with post-rock band Tortoise
, while John McEntire
of Tortoise has in turn worked on several Stereolab albums. In the 1990s Stereolab and veteran industrial band Nurse With Wound
released two limited-edition records together; both contained Nurse With Wound remixes of original tracks provided by Stereolab.
Stylistically, music journalist J. D. Considine credits the band for anticipating and driving the late 1990s revival of vintage analog instruments among indie rock bands. Indie rock band Pavement
(who also toured with Stereolab) acknowledged the group's sound on their song "Half A Canyon." Stereolab alumni have also founded bands of their own. Guitarist Sean O'Hagan
went on to form the The High Llamas
, while keyboardist Katharine Gifford created Snowpony
with a former member of My Bloody Valentine. Sadier herself has released three albums with her four-piece side-project Monade
, whose sound Mark Jenkins called a "little more Parisian" than Stereolab's.
Despite earning critical acclaim and a sizable fanbase, commercial success eluded the group. Early in their career, their 1993 EP Jenny Ondioline
entered the UK Singles Chart
, but financial issues prevented the band from printing enough records to satisfy demand. When Elektra Records
was closed down by Warner Bros. Records
in 2004, Stereolab was dropped along with many other artists, reportedly because of poor sales. Since then, Stereolab's self-owned label Duophonic
has inked a worldwide distribution deal with independent label Too Pure
. Through Duophonic the band both licenses their music and releases it directly (depending on geographic market). According to Tim Gane, "... we license our recordings and just give them to people, then we don't have to ask for permission if we want to use it. We just want to be in control of our own music."
s, EPs
, and single
s in their career. They made it a practice to make almost all of their more obscure material widely available through compilations.
Tim Gane
Tim Gane is the leader of the rock band, Stereolab.He started his musical career as a purveyor of harsh noise in the early 1980s under the alias Unkommuniti releasing self financed cassettes on Black Dwarf Wreckordings along with fellow Unkommuniti members Kallous Boys and other noise projects....
(guitar
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
/keyboard
Musical keyboard
A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...
s) and Lætitia Sadier
Lætitia Sadier
Lætitia Sadier is a French musician best known as the singer of the post-rock band Stereolab.-Stereolab:...
(vocals/keyboards/guitar), both of whom remained at the helm across many lineup changes. Other long-time members include Mary Hansen
Mary Hansen
Mary Hansen was a guitarist and singer with Stereolab.Born in Maryborough north of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia, Hansen moved to London in the late 1980s and became a backing singer with the Essex-based indie band, The Wolfhounds.She met Stereolab founder Tim Gane when the Wolfhounds played...
(backing vocals/keyboards/guitar), who played with the group from 1992 until her accidental death in 2002, and Andy Ramsay
Andy Ramsay
Andy Ramsay is a British drummer, programmer and sound engineer. He has played with the electro-pop band Stereolab since 1992...
(drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
), who joined in 1993, and who is still in the official line-up.
Called "one of the most fiercely independent and original groups of the Nineties", Stereolab were one of the first bands to be termed "post-rock
Post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of rock music characterized by the influence and use of instruments commonly associated with rock, but using rhythms and "guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures" not traditionally found in rock...
". Their primary musical influence was 1970s krautrock
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
, which they combined with lounge
Lounge music
Lounge music is a retrospective description of music popular in the 1950s and 1960s. It is a type of mood music meant to evoke in the listeners the feeling of being in a place — a jungle, an island paradise, outer space, et cetera — other than where they are listening to it...
, 1960s pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, and experimental pop music. They were noted for their heavy use of vintage electronic keyboards, and their sound often overlays a repetitive "motorik
Motorik
Motorik is a term coined by music journalists to describe the 4/4 beat often used by "Krautrock" bands such as Neu! and Kraftwerk...
" beat with female vocals sung in English or French. Stereolab often incorporated socio-political themes into their lyrics. Some critics say the group's lyrics carry a strong Marxist message, and Gane and Sadier admit to being influenced by the Surrealist and Situationist cultural and political movements. Gane is sceptical of labels such as "Marxist pop", and defends the band against accusations of "sloganeering".
Although many of the band's albums have been underground hits, they never found larger commercial success. The band were released from their recording contract with Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
when Warner's imprint Elektra Records
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
folded. The release was reportedly due to poor record sales, and since then Stereolab's self-owned label, Duophonic Records
Duophonic Records
Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks Limited, known as Duophonic Super 45s, is a London based independent record label formed by the British pop group Stereolab...
, has signed a distribution deal with Too Pure
Too Pure
Too Pure is a London-based independent record label that was formed in 1990 by Richard Roberts and Paul Cox.-History:Too Pure started off as a small experimental label and had built their reputation by releasing primarily alternative/independent music which they felt was being ignored by the major...
. Duophonic holds the copyrights to the band's recordings, and on the label the band have released many limited-edition records. In 2009, Stereolab announced via their website that they were going on indefinite hiatus.
1990–1993
In 1985, Tim Gane formed McCarthyMcCarthy (band)
McCarthy were a British indie pop band, formed in Barking, Essex, England in 1984 by schoolmates Malcolm Eden and Tim Gane with John Williamson and Gary Baker...
, a band from Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, England known for their left-wing politics. Gane met the French-born Lætitia Sadier at a McCarthy concert in Paris and the two quickly fell in love. The musically-inclined Sadier was disillusioned with the rock scene in France and soon moved to London to be with Gane and to pursue her career. After three albums, McCarthy broke up in 1990 and Gane immediately formed Stereolab with Sadier (who had also contributed vocals to McCarthy's final album) and ex-Chills
The Chills
The Chills are a guitar and keyboard-based rock band from Dunedin, New Zealand. In the 1980s and 1990s, they were one of the proponents of the Dunedin Sound.- History :...
bassist Martin Kean
Martin Kean
Martin Kean is a New Zealand bass guitarist. He played with The Chills , from November 1983 to June 1984, when Moore rejoined.He formed Stereolab in 1990 with Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier...
. The group's name was taken from a division of Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records is a record label set up in 1950 by brothers Maynard and Seymour Solomon in New York. It started as a classical label, but is perhaps best known for its catalogue of recordings by a number of pivotal folk and blues artists from the 1960s; the Bach Guild was a subsidiary...
demonstrating hi-fi effects.
Gane and Sadier, along with future Stereolab manager Martin Pike, created a record label called Duophonic Super 45s—which, along with later offshoot Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks, would be commonly known as "Duophonic". The 10 inch vinyl EP
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
Super 45
Super 45
Super 45, a 1991 EP, was the first release by Stereolab. It was limited to approximately 800 copies.It was sold at concerts, via mail order, and at the Rough Trade record store in London.All four tracks were later included on Switched On....
was the group's and the label's first release, and was sold through mail order and the Rough Trade Shop
Rough Trade Shop
Rough Trade are two independent record shops based in London, UK.The first Rough Trade shop was opened in 1976 by Geoff Travis in the Portobello Road district of west London. In 1978 the shop spawned the famous Rough Trade Records, which was to go on to be home to bands from The Smiths to The...
in London. Super 45s band-designed album art and packaging was the first of many customized and limited-edition Duophonic records. In a 1996 interview in The Wire
The Wire (magazine)
The Wire is a British avant garde music magazine, founded in 1982 by jazz promoter Anthony Wood and journalist Chrissie Murray. The magazine initially concentrated on contemporary jazz and improvised music, but branched out in the early 1990s to various types of experimental music...
Gane calls the "do-it-yourself" aesthetic behind Duophonic "empowering", and says that by releasing one's own music "you learn; it creates more music, more ideas". Other independent bands such as Tortoise
Tortoise (band)
Tortoise is an American post-rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1990.-Music:Tortoise's almost entirely instrumental music defies easy categorization, and the group gained significant attention from their early career. The members have roots in Chicago's fertile music scene, playing in...
, Broadcast
Broadcast (band)
Broadcast are an electronic music band, founded in Birmingham, England. Original members were Trish Keenan , Roj Stevens , Tim Felton and James Cargill . Various drummers played with the band, including Keith York, Phil Jenkins, Jeremy Barnes, Steve Perkins, and Neil Bullock...
, and Labradford
Labradford
Labradford is a U.S. post-rock musical group from Richmond, Virginia, founded in 1991. They have released six full albums from 1993 to 2001. Though not officially disbanded, its members have since been active with separate projects.-Biography:...
would also release material on Duophonic.
Stereolab followed up with another EP, Super-Electric, and a single, "Stunning Debut Album" (not actually their debut or an album). The band's early material was rock and guitar-oriented; of Super-Electric, Jason Ankeny wrote in Allmusic that "Droning guitars, skeletal rhythms, and pop hooks—not vintage synths and pointillist melodies—were their calling cards ..." In 1992 Stereolab's first full-length album, Peng!
Peng!
Peng! is the first full length album from Stereolab, originally released in 1992. It showcases an eclectic variety of styles, from experimental pop to Krautrock to lounge.-Track listing:# "Super Falling Star" – 3:16# "Orgiastic" – 4:44...
, and first compilation, Switched On
Switched On
Switched On is a compilation of Stereolab's first three releases, and was originally released in 1992. The album's name is in tribute to Switched-On Bach and other similar titles from the late 1960s to 1970s that feature Moog synthesizers as the primary instrument...
, were released on independent label Too Pure. Around this time, the lineup coalesced around Gane and Sadier plus vocalist Mary Hansen, drummer Andy Ramsay, bassist Duncan Brown, keyboardist Katharine Gifford, and guitarist Sean O'Hagan
Sean O'Hagan
Sean O'Hagan is a founding member of Irish indie band Microdisney. In the 1990s he formed The High Llamas and released a number of highly acclaimed albums showing influences as diverse as The Beach Boys, Ennio Morricone, Antonio Carlos Jobim and avant-garde electronica...
of the 1980s famed Microdisney
Microdisney
Microdisney was an Irish musical duo, formed in 1980 by Cathal Coughlan and Sean O'Hagan .-Original line-up:*Vocals: Cathal Coughlan*Guitar: Sean O'Hagan*Keyboards: Nick Montgomery*Bass: Jon Fell...
duo. Hansen, an Australian, had been in touch with Gane since his McCarthy days. After joining, she and Sadier developed a style of vocal counterpoint that distinguished Stereolab's sound until Hansen's death ten years later in 2002. O'Hagan would later leave to form The High Llamas
The High Llamas
The High Llamas are a London-based musical group, formed by the Irish guitarist and songwriter Sean O'Hagan after the demise of his group Microdisney. O'Hagan writes and arranges the music and the rest of the group consists of drummer Rob Allum, keyboardist/cellist Marcus Holdaway, and...
, but would frequently return to contribute to Stereolab's records.
Beginning with their 1993 EP Space Age Bachelor Pad Music
Space Age Bachelor Pad Music
Space Age Bachelor Pad Music also known by the name The Groop Played "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music" is an EP by the band Stereolab, originally released in early 1993...
, the band began to incorporate easy-listening elements into their sound. This release raised Stereolab's profile and landed them a major-label American record deal with Elektra Records. Their next album, 1993's Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements
Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements
Originally released in August 1993, Stereolab's Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements was the group's major-label debut. The majority of the first 1800 vinyl copies had to be destroyed because of bad pressing quality...
, was their first American release under Elektra, and became an underground hit in both the U.S. and the U.K. Mark Jenkins commented in The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
that with the album Stereolab "continues the glorious drones of [their] indie work, giving celestial sweep to [their] garage-rock organ pumping and rhythm-guitar strumming". In the U.K. it was released on Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks, which is responsible for domestic releases of Stereolab's major albums. The year would also see a collaboration with industrial
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
stalwarts Nurse With Wound
Nurse with Wound
Nurse with Wound is the main recording name for British musician Steven Stapleton. Nurse with Wound was originally a band, formed in 1978 by Stapleton, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak...
, in the form of the Crumb Duck
Crumb Duck
Crumb Duck is the first collaboration between prolific Anglo-French indie band Stereolab and cult avant-garde unit Nurse With Wound, first released on 10" vinyl on the Clawfist label in 1993....
EP.
1994–2001
On 8 January 1994, Stereolab achieved their first chart entry when their 1993 EP Jenny OndiolineJenny Ondioline
Jenny Ondioline is a 1993 EP by the Anglo-French band Stereolab. Its tracks were later re-released on the Oscillons from the Anti-Sun compilation.-Track listing:# "Jenny Ondioline "# "Fruition"# "Golden Ball" [Studio]# "French Disko"...
entered at #75 on the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
. (Over the next three years, four more releases by the band would appear on this chart, ending with the EP Miss Modular
Miss Modular
Miss Modular is an EP by the post-rock band Stereolab, released in 1997. It was produced in collaboration with the group Mouse on Mars.All four of its tracks were later re-released on the Oscillons from the Anti-Sun compilation.-Track listing:...
in 1997.) With their 1994 full-length, Mars Audiac Quintet
Mars Audiac Quintet
Mars Audiac Quintet is an album by the band Stereolab, released in August 1994. Initial releases of the CD came with bonus two-track disk, the double vinyl album came with a 7'...
, Stereolab focused more on pop and less on rock, resulting in what Allmusic described as "what may be the group's most accessible, tightly-written album". Mars Audiac Quintet makes heavy use of vintage electronic instruments, and also contains the single "Ping Pong", which gained press coverage for its allegedly explicitly Marxist lyrics. After releasing a 1995 collection of singles and B-sides called Refried Ectoplasm: Switched On, Vol. 2
Refried Ectoplasm
Refried Ectoplasm , released in July 1995, is a compilation by Stereolab of singles and rarities.-Track listing:# "Harmonium" – 5:55 ...
, Stereolab followed with an EP titled Music for the Amorphous Body Study Center
Music for the Amorphous Body Study Center
Music for the Amorphous Body Study Center is an EP by Stereolab, created in collaboration with New York sculptor Charles Long. The songs became part of Long's exhibit, complementing each of his sculptures. The album was initially available only at the exhibit in a pressing of 1500; another limited...
. This EP was their musical contribution to an interactive art exhibit put on in collaboration with New York City artist Charles Long.
Stereolab's 1996 album, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, was a critical success and was played heavily on college radio. A record that "captivated alternative rock", it represented Stereolab's "high-water mark" according to music journalists Tom Moon and Joshua Klein, respectively. Krautrock techniques were still present, but the band stirred the pot with hip-hop sounds and complex instrumental arrangements. Stephan Davet of French newspaper Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
claimed to see musical influences as diverse as The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
, Burt Bacharach
Burt Bacharach
Burt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...
, and Françoise Hardy
Françoise Hardy
Françoise Madeleine Hardy is a French singer, actress and astrologer. Hardy is an iconic figure in fashion, music and style. She is married to the singer and movie actor Jacques Dutronc.-Biography:...
on the album. John McEntire
John McEntire
John McEntire is an American recording engineer, drummer and multi-instrumentalist. He is best-known for being in Tortoise and The Sea and Cake, as well as being a highly in-demand producer and engineer....
of the band Tortoise assisted with production and also played on Emperor Tomato Ketchup, while Katharine Gifford was replaced by Morgane Lhote before its recording, and bassist Duncan Brown by Richard Harrison afterward.
Also in 1996, Stereolab collaborated with Herbie Mann
Herbie Mann
Herbert Jay Solomon , better known as Herbie Mann, was a Jewish American jazz flutist and important early practitioner of world music...
on the song "One Note Samba/Surfboard" for the AIDS-Benefit album Red Hot + Rio
Red Hot + Rio
Red Hot + Rio is a compilation album produced by Paul Heck as part of the Red Hot AIDS Benefit Series intended to promote AIDS awareness. This installment is a contemporary tribute to the Bossa nova sound, especially the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim...
produced by the Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization is a not-for-profit, 501 3, international organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture.Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors have contributed to over 15 compilation albums, related television programs and media events to raise...
.
Dots and Loops
Dots and Loops
Dots and Loops is the fifth studio album by the band Stereolab, released in September 1997. Jan St. Werner of Mouse on Mars contributes to several tracks...
was released in 1997, and was Stereolab's first album to enter the Billboard 200 charts
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
, peaking at #111. Barney Hoskyns
Barney Hoskyns
Barney Hoskyns is a British music critic and editor of the online music journalism archive Rock's Backpages.Hoskyns graduated from Oxford with a First Class degree in English. He began writing about music for Melody Maker and New Musical Express, quitting his job as staff writer at NME to research...
wrote in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
that with it the group moved "ever further away from the one-chord Velvets drone-mesh of its early days" toward easy listening and Europop. A review in German newspaper Die Zeit
Die Zeit
Die Zeit is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism.With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper...
echoed this observation, claiming that in Dots and Loops Stereolab transformed the harder Velvet Underground-like riffs of previous releases into "softer sounds and noisy playfulness". Contributors to the album once again included John McEntire, along with Sean O'Hagan
Sean O'Hagan
Sean O'Hagan is a founding member of Irish indie band Microdisney. In the 1990s he formed The High Llamas and released a number of highly acclaimed albums showing influences as diverse as The Beach Boys, Ennio Morricone, Antonio Carlos Jobim and avant-garde electronica...
of The High Llamas
The High Llamas
The High Llamas are a London-based musical group, formed by the Irish guitarist and songwriter Sean O'Hagan after the demise of his group Microdisney. O'Hagan writes and arranges the music and the rest of the group consists of drummer Rob Allum, keyboardist/cellist Marcus Holdaway, and...
and Jan St. Werner of German electropop duo Mouse on Mars
Mouse on Mars
Mouse on Mars is a duo from Germany who have been making electronic music since 1993. Their music is a sometimes quirky blend of IDM, krautrock, disco, and ambient with a heavy dollop of analog synth sounds and cross-frequency modulation...
. A second Nurse With Wound
Nurse with Wound
Nurse with Wound is the main recording name for British musician Steven Stapleton. Nurse with Wound was originally a band, formed in 1978 by Stapleton, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak...
collaboration, Simple Headphone Mind
Simple Headphone Mind
Simple Headphone Mind is the second collaboration between Stereolab and Nurse With Wound. As with their first release, Crumb Duck, Stereolab recorded the basic track and then handed it over to Steven Stapleton to do with as he pleased...
, appeared in 1997, and the third release in the "Switched On" series, Aluminum Tunes
Aluminum Tunes
Aluminum Tunes is a double album collection of EPs and rarities from Stereolab, released in 1998.-CD 1:# "Pop Quiz" - 4:22...
, followed in 1998.
The band then took a break from traveling while Gane and Sadier had a child. In 1999, Stereolab's next album appeared, titled Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night, released in 1999, is a studio album by the band Stereolab.- Track listing :All tracks by Tim Gane, Laetitia Sadier# "Fuses" – 3:40# "People Do It All the Time" – 3:42# "The Free Design" – 3:47...
. Co-produced by McEntire and American producer Jim O'Rourke
Jim O'Rourke (musician)
Jim O'Rourke is an Irish-American musician and record producer. He was long associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene...
, the album earned mixed reviews for its lighter sound, and peaked at #154 on the Billboard 200. An unsigned NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
review said that "this record has far more in common with bad jazz and progressive rock than any experimental art-rock tradition." In a 1999 The Washington Post article, Mark Jenkins asked Gane about the album's apparent lack of guitars; Gane responded, "There's a lot less upfront, distorted guitar ... But it's still quite guitar-based music. Every single track has a guitar on it." Stereolab added a new bassist, Simon Johns, for the Cobra and Phases Group ... tour.
The full-length Sound-Dust
Sound-Dust
Sound-Dust is an album by the band Stereolab, released in late 2001. It was recorded with producer Jim O'Rourke and John McEntire.'Nothing To Do With Me' features lyrics derived from sketches by English satirist Chris Morris....
followed in 2001, and rose to #178 on the Billboard 200. Again featuring producers McEntire and O'Rourke, it was more warmly received than Cobra and Phases Group .... Critic Joshua Klein said that "the emphasis this time sounds less on unfocused experimentation and more on melody ... a breezy and welcome return to form for the British band." Klein also commented that "never has it been harder to discern just what [Sadier] is singing, but rarely has her gibberish sounded so pleasant."
2002–2008
In 2002, Stereolab began to plan their next album, and started building a studio north of Bordeaux, France. In October 2002, the band released ABC Music: The Radio 1 SessionsABC Music
ABC Music: The Radio 1 Sessions, released in October 2002, is a compilation by post-rock band Stereolab of BBC Radio 1 sessions recorded from July 1991 to August 2001...
; a compilation of BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
sessions. The year also saw Gane and Sadier end their romantic relationship.
On 9 December 2002, longstanding band member Mary Hansen
Mary Hansen
Mary Hansen was a guitarist and singer with Stereolab.Born in Maryborough north of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia, Hansen moved to London in the late 1980s and became a backing singer with the Essex-based indie band, The Wolfhounds.She met Stereolab founder Tim Gane when the Wolfhounds played...
was killed when struck by a truck while riding her bicycle. Born in Maryborough, Queensland
Maryborough, Queensland
Maryborough is a city located on the Mary River in South East Queensland, Australia, approximately north of the state capital, Brisbane. The city is serviced by the Bruce Highway, and has a population of approximately 22,000 . It is closely tied to its neighbour city Hervey Bay which is...
, Australia, Hansen earned the most attention for her vocal work with Stereolab, although she also played the guitar and keyboards. The music journalist Pierre Perrone said that Hansen's "playful nature and mischievous sense of humour came through in the way she approached the backing vocals she contributed to Stereolab and the distinctive harmonies she created with Sadier." For the next few months, Stereolab lay dormant as the members grieved. They eventually decided to continue; as Sadier explained in a 2004 interview: "Losing Mary is still incredibly painful ... But it's also an opportunity to transform and move on. It's a new version. We've always had new versions, people coming in and out. That's life." (Future album and concert reviews would mention the effects of Hansen's absence.) In a 2004 interview, Sadier said that "Our dedication to her on the album [2004's Margerine Eclipse
Margerine Eclipse
is an album by the band Stereolab, released in early 2004. The album is in large part a eulogy to Mary Hansen.-Track listing:# "Vonal Declosion" – 3:34# "Need to Be" – 4:50# "...Sudden Stars" – 4:41# "Cosmic Country Noir" – 4:47# "La Demeure" – 4:36...
] says, 'We will love you till the end', meaning of our lives. I'm not religious, but I feel Mary's energy is still around somewhere. It didn't just disappear."
The 2003 EP Instant 0 in the Universe
Instant 0 in the Universe
Instant 0 in the Universe is a 2003 EP by Stereolab. It was released as three 7" singles in a slipcase as well as on CD. This was the first release by the group after the death of longtime member Mary Hansen in December 2002...
was recorded in France, and was Stereolab's first release following Hansen's death. According to the music journalist Jim DeRogatis, the EP marked a return to their earlier, harder sound—"free from the pseudo-funk moves and avant-garde tinkering that had been inspired by Chicago producer Jim O'Rourke". That year, Sadier's side-project, Monade
Monade
Monade is a Bordeaux, France-based post-rock band which was initially a side project of Lætitia Sadier, a founding member of Stereolab. In the late 1990s, the All-City imprint released a 7" split of Monade's "Ode to a Keyring"/"Witch Hazel" [the a-side of the split featured materials by post-rock...
, released their debut album Socialisme Ou Barbarie: The Bedroom Recordings. Both the name of the group and the title of the album were references to the work of Greek-French intellectual Cornelius Castoriadis
Cornelius Castoriadis
Cornelius Castoriadis was a Greek philosopher, social critic, economist, psychoanalyst, author of The Imaginary Institution of Society, and co-founder of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group.-Early life in Athens:...
.
The full-length album Margerine Eclipse
Margerine Eclipse
is an album by the band Stereolab, released in early 2004. The album is in large part a eulogy to Mary Hansen.-Track listing:# "Vonal Declosion" – 3:34# "Need to Be" – 4:50# "...Sudden Stars" – 4:41# "Cosmic Country Noir" – 4:47# "La Demeure" – 4:36...
followed in 2004 to generally positive reviews, and peaked at #174 on the US Billboard 200. The track "Feel and Triple" was written in tribute to Hansen; according to Sadier "I was reflecting on my years with her ... reflecting on how we sometimes found it hard to express the love we had for one another." The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
s Molloy Woodcraft awarded the album four out of five stars, and described Sadier's vocal performance as "life- and love-affirming", and the record as a whole as "Complex and catchy, bold and beatific." Kelefa Sanneh argued in Rolling Stone that Margerine Eclipse was "full of familiar noises and aimless melodies". Margerine Eclipse was Stereolab's last record on their American label Elektra Records, which closed down in 2004. Future material would be released on Too Pure, the same company which released some of the band's earliest material.
The album was followed by Oscillons from the Anti-Sun
Oscillons from the Anti-Sun
Oscillons from the Anti-Sun, released in April 2005, is a three-CD, one-DVD box-set collection of Stereolab tracks culled from eight of the group's EPs and singles...
; a 2005 three-CD and one-DVD retrospective of the group's rarer material. Monade's second album, A Few Steps More, also appeared that year. In 2005 and 2006, Stereolab released six limited-edition singles which were collected in Fab Four Suture
Fab Four Suture
Fab Four Suture is a compilation album by Stereolab, released in March 2006. It collects six singles and their B-sides originally released on 7-inch vinyl in 2005 and 2006.-Singles collected on Fab Four Suture:...
, and contained material which Mark Jenkins thought continued the brisker sound of the band's post-Hansen work. Serene Velocity
Serene Velocity (album)
Serene Velocity is a compilation album by Stereolab, released in late 2006. It focuses on material released during the band's Elektra years.-Track listing:# "Jenny Ondioline, Pt...
, a "best-of" compilation focusing on the band's Elektra years, was released in late 2006. By June 2007, Stereolab's lineup comprised Tim Gane, Lætitia Sadier, Andy Ramsay, Simon Johns, Dominic Jeffrey, Joseph Watson, and Joseph Walters. The band had finished the production of their next album, entitled Chemical Chords
Chemical Chords
Chemical Chords is the tenth studio album by the band Stereolab, released in August 2008. The album title is referenced to by Tyler, The Creator during the final verse of "Fin," from The Odd Future Tape.-Track listing:# "Neon Beanbag" – 3:49...
, which was released in August 2008 on the 4AD label. The release of the album was followed by an autumn tour of Europe and the United States.
2009 (indefinite hiatus)–present
They toured Australia in February 2009 as part of the St Jerome's Laneway FestivalSt Jerome's Laneway Festival
Known simply as the Laneway or St. Jerome's Festival, the music festival began in Caledonian Lane in Melbourne in 2004. Emerging as an indie music event, the Laneway Festival has grown rapidly in popularity, receiving favourable reviews in music press....
and in April 2009, Pike announced a pause in the band's career together for the time being. After 19 years, he stated they felt it was time to take a rest and move on to new projects.
In November 2010, Not Music
Not Music
-Track listing:# Everybody's Weird Except Me# Supah Jaianto# So Is Cardboard Clouds# Equivalences# Leleklato Sugar# Silver Sands [Emperor Machine Mix]# Two Finger Symphony# Delugeoisie# Laserblast# Sun Demon# Aelita# Pop Molecules...
, a collection of unreleased material which was recorded at the same time as Chemical Chords, was released.
Musical style
Stereolab's music combines a droning rock sound with loungeLounge music
Lounge music is a retrospective description of music popular in the 1950s and 1960s. It is a type of mood music meant to evoke in the listeners the feeling of being in a place — a jungle, an island paradise, outer space, et cetera — other than where they are listening to it...
instrumentals, overlaid with singsong female vocals and pop melodies. Their records were heavily influenced by the motorik
Motorik
Motorik is a term coined by music journalists to describe the 4/4 beat often used by "Krautrock" bands such as Neu! and Kraftwerk...
technique of 1970s krautrock
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
groups such as Neu!
Neu!
Neu! was a German band formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother after their split from Kraftwerk in the early 1970s...
and Faust
Faust (band)
Faust are a German krautrock band. Formed in 1971 in Wümme, the group was originally composed of Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with record producer Uwe Nettelbeck and engineer Kurt Graupner.-History:Faust...
. Tim Gane has supported the comparison: "Neu! did minimalism and drones, but in a very pop way." Stereolab's style also incorporates easy-listening music of the 1950s and '60s. Said Joshua Klein in The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, "Years before everyone else caught on, Stereolab was referencing the 1970s German bands Can
Can (band)
Can was an experimental rock band formed in Cologne, West Germany in 1968. Later labeled as one of the first "krautrock" groups, they transcended mainstream influences and incorporated strong minimalist and world music elements into their often psychedelic music.Can constructed their music largely...
and Neu!, the Mexican lounge music master Esquivel
Juan García Esquivel
Juan García Esquivel often simply known as Esquivel!, was a Mexican band leader, pianist, and composer for television and films. He is recognized today as one of the foremost exponents of a sophisticated style of largely instrumental music that combines elements of lounge music and jazz with Latin...
and the decidedly unhip Burt Bacharach
Burt Bacharach
Burt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...
."
Farfisa
Farfisa is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy.The Farfisa brand name is commonly associated with a series of compact electronic organs, and later, a series of multi-timbral synthesizers. At the height of its production, Farfisa operated three factories to produce instruments, in...
and Vox organ
Vox (musical equipment)
Vox is a musical equipment manufacturer which is most famous for making the Vox AC30 guitar amplifier, the Vox Continental electric organ, and a series of innovative but commercially unsuccessful electric guitars and bass guitars...
s, and the Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
, which was featured prominently on 1994's Mars Audiac Quintet. Gane has praised these older instruments for their superior controllability: "We use the older effects because they're more direct, more extreme, and they're more like plasticine: you can shape them into loads of things." Funk, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, and Brazilian music were inspirations, and the sound of minimalist
Minimalist music
Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....
composers Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
and Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
can be found on 1999's Cobra and Phases Group .... Several critics have commented that the band's later work, like Instant 0 in the Universe (2003) and Margerine Eclipse (2004), sound similar to their guitar-driven earlier style.
Lætitia Sadier's bilingual French and English vocals have been a part of Stereolab since the beginning. She writes the group's lyrics, which have a tendency towards Marxist social commentary rather than "affairs of the heart" (in the opinion of music journalist Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds is an English music critic who is well-known for his writings on electronic dance music and for coining the term "post-rock". Besides electronic dance music, Reynolds has written about a wide range of artists and musical genres, and has written books on post-punk and rock...
). In reference to Sadier's laid-back delivery, Peter Shapiro wrote in The Wire
The Wire (magazine)
The Wire is a British avant garde music magazine, founded in 1982 by jazz promoter Anthony Wood and journalist Chrissie Murray. The magazine initially concentrated on contemporary jazz and improvised music, but branched out in the early 1990s to various types of experimental music...
that she has all the "emotional histrionics" of 1960s German singer Nico
Nico
Nico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress, who initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s...
. Sometimes Sadier will just sing wordlessly along with the music. Before Mary Hansen's death in 2002, she and Sadier would often trade vocals back-and-forth in a singsong manner that has been described as "eerie" and "hypnotic". Critic Jim Harrington commented that Hansen's absence is noticeable on live performances of Stereolab's older tracks, and that their newer songs could have benefited from her backing vocals.
In interviews, Gane and Sadier have discussed their musical philosophy. According to Gane "to be unique was more important than to be good." On the subject of being too obscure, he said in a 1996 interview that "maybe the area where we're on dodgy ground, is this idea that you need great knowledge [of] esoteric music to understand what we're doing." In the same interview Sadier responds to Gane, saying that she "think[s] we have achieved a music that will make sense to a lot of people whether they know about Steve Reich or not." The duo were up-front about their desire to grow the group's sound—for Gane, "otherwise it just sounds like what other people are doing," and for Sadier, "you trust that there is more and that it can be done more interesting."
On stage
Stereolab toured regularly to support their album releases. The band were not afraid to turn up the volume in concert. In a 1996 The Washington Post gig review, Mark Jenkins wrote that Stereolab started out favoring an "easy-listening syncopation", but eventually reverted to a "messier, more urgent sound" characteristic of its earlier performances. In another review Jenkins said that the band's live songs "frequently veer[ed] into more cacophonous, guitar-dominated territory", in contrast to lighter albums like Cobra and Phases Group .... In the Minneapolis Star Tribune Jon Bream compared the band's live sound to feedback-driven rock bands like The Velvet UndergroundThe Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
, Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
and My Bloody Valentine. Several critics have said that Stereolab lacked stage presence, arguing that Sadier's vocal delivery was too subdued and that the band tended to play instead of perform its music. Regarding being onstage, Gane has said that "I don't like to be the center of attention ... I just get into the music and am not really aware of the people there. That's my way of getting through it."
Lyrics and titles
Stereolab's music is politically and philosophically charged. Lætitia Sadier, who wrote the group's lyrics, has reportedly been inspired by her anger at the Iraq War. The Surrealist and Situationist cultural and political movements were also influences, as noted by Sadier and Gane in a 1999 Salon.comSalon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
interview. Stewart Mason commented in an Allmusic review that the lyrics from the 1997 song "Miss Modular" "sound influenced by the Situationist theory of the 'spectacle'." When asked to explain her intentions in a 1991 Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
interview, Sadier responded that "Basically I want to change the world. I want to make people think about how they live every day, shake them a bit."
Critics have seen Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
allusions in the band's lyrics, and several have gone so far as to call the band itself Marxist. "Ping Pong", a single included on Mars Audiac Quintet
Mars Audiac Quintet
Mars Audiac Quintet is an album by the band Stereolab, released in August 1994. Initial releases of the CD came with bonus two-track disk, the double vinyl album came with a 7'...
(1994), has been put forward as evidence. In the song, Sadier sings "about capitalism's cruel cycles of slump and recovery" with lyrics that constitute "a plainspoken explanation of one of the central tenets of Marxian economic analysis" (said critics Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds is an English music critic who is well-known for his writings on electronic dance music and for coining the term "post-rock". Besides electronic dance music, Reynolds has written about a wide range of artists and musical genres, and has written books on post-punk and rock...
and Stewart Mason, respectively). The song opens with the lines:
It's alright 'cause the historical pattern has shown,
How the economical cycle tends to revolve,
In a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop,
A slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more.
Band members have resisted attempts to link the group and its music to Marxism. In a 1999 interview, Gane stated that "none of us are Marxists ... I've never even read Marx." Although Gane admitted that his partner's lyrics touch on political topics, he argued that they do not cross the line into "sloganeering". Sadier herself has mentioned that she has read very little Marx. In contrast, Cornelius Castoriadis, a radical political philosopher but strong critic of Marxism, has been mentioned as a marking influence in her thinking. Her side project's name (Monade
Monade
Monade is a Bordeaux, France-based post-rock band which was initially a side project of Lætitia Sadier, a founding member of Stereolab. In the late 1990s, the All-City imprint released a 7" split of Monade's "Ode to a Keyring"/"Witch Hazel" [the a-side of the split featured materials by post-rock...
) and their first album's title (Socialisme ou Barbarie) are also references to the work of Castoriadis.
Stereolab's album and song titles occasionally reference avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
political groups and artists. Gane said that the title of their 1999 album Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night, released in 1999, is a studio album by the band Stereolab.- Track listing :All tracks by Tim Gane, Laetitia Sadier# "Fuses" – 3:40# "People Do It All the Time" – 3:42# "The Free Design" – 3:47...
contains the names of two Surrealist organizations, "CoBrA
COBRA (avant-garde movement)
COBRA was a European avant-garde movement active from 1948 to 1951. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home cities: Copenhagen , Brussels , Amsterdam .-History:...
" and "Phases Group". The title of the first song on Dots and Loops, "Brakhage", is a nod to experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage
Stan Brakhage
James Stanley Brakhage , better known as Stan Brakhage, was an American non-narrative filmmaker who is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th century experimental film....
. Other examples are the 1992 compilation Switched On
Switched On
Switched On is a compilation of Stereolab's first three releases, and was originally released in 1992. The album's name is in tribute to Switched-On Bach and other similar titles from the late 1960s to 1970s that feature Moog synthesizers as the primary instrument...
, named after a 1969 Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos is an American composer and electronic musician. Carlos first came to notice in the late 1960s with recordings made on the Moog synthesizer, then a relatively new and unknown instrument; most notable were LPs of synthesized Bach and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film A...
album, and the 1992 single "John Cage Bubblegum", named after experimental composer John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
.
Impact
Stereolab have been called "one of the most influential alternative bands of the '90s", and one of "the decade's most innovative British bands." Simon Reynolds commented in Rolling Stone that the group's earlier records form "an endlessly seductive body of work that sounds always the same, always different." In The Wire, Peter Shapiro compared the band favorably to BritpopBritpop
Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s...
bands Oasis
Oasis (band)
Oasis were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991. Originally known as The Rain, the group was formed by Liam Gallagher , Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs , Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan and Tony McCarroll , who were soon joined by Liam's older brother Noel Gallagher...
and Blur
Blur (band)
Blur is an English alternative rock band. Formed in London in 1989 as Seymour, the group consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Blur's debut album Leisure incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing...
, and defended their music against the charge that it is "nothing but the sum total of its arcane reference points." Stereolab was one of the first groups to be called post-rock
Post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of rock music characterized by the influence and use of instruments commonly associated with rock, but using rhythms and "guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures" not traditionally found in rock...
—in a 1996 article, journalist Angela Lewis applied the "new term" to Stereolab and three other bands who have connections to the group. The band's 1996 album Emperor Tomato Ketchup, their "high-water mark" according to critic Joshua Klein, was a critical success and underground hit. Stereolab has also received negative press. Barney Hoskyns
Barney Hoskyns
Barney Hoskyns is a British music critic and editor of the online music journalism archive Rock's Backpages.Hoskyns graduated from Oxford with a First Class degree in English. He began writing about music for Melody Maker and New Musical Express, quitting his job as staff writer at NME to research...
questioned the longevity of their music in a 1996 Mojo
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
review, saying that their records "sound more like arid experiments than music born of emotional need." In The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, Dave Simpson stated: "With their borrowings from early, obscure Kraftwerk and hip obtuse sources, [Stereolab] sound like a band of rock critics rather than musicians." Lætitia Sadier's vocals were cited by author Stuart Shea as often being "indecipherable."
A variety of artists—musical and otherwise—have collaborated with Stereolab. In 1995 the group teamed up with sculptor Charles Long for an interactive art show in New York City, for which Long provided the exhibits and Stereolab the music. They have released tracks by and toured with post-rock band Tortoise
Tortoise (band)
Tortoise is an American post-rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1990.-Music:Tortoise's almost entirely instrumental music defies easy categorization, and the group gained significant attention from their early career. The members have roots in Chicago's fertile music scene, playing in...
, while John McEntire
John McEntire
John McEntire is an American recording engineer, drummer and multi-instrumentalist. He is best-known for being in Tortoise and The Sea and Cake, as well as being a highly in-demand producer and engineer....
of Tortoise has in turn worked on several Stereolab albums. In the 1990s Stereolab and veteran industrial band Nurse With Wound
Nurse with Wound
Nurse with Wound is the main recording name for British musician Steven Stapleton. Nurse with Wound was originally a band, formed in 1978 by Stapleton, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak...
released two limited-edition records together; both contained Nurse With Wound remixes of original tracks provided by Stereolab.
Stylistically, music journalist J. D. Considine credits the band for anticipating and driving the late 1990s revival of vintage analog instruments among indie rock bands. Indie rock band Pavement
Pavement (band)
Pavement is an American alternative rock band that formed in Stockton, California in 1989. In their career, they achieved a significant cult following, and they were called the best band of the 1990s by prominent music critics Robert Christgau and Stephen Thomas Erlewine...
(who also toured with Stereolab) acknowledged the group's sound on their song "Half A Canyon." Stereolab alumni have also founded bands of their own. Guitarist Sean O'Hagan
Sean O'Hagan
Sean O'Hagan is a founding member of Irish indie band Microdisney. In the 1990s he formed The High Llamas and released a number of highly acclaimed albums showing influences as diverse as The Beach Boys, Ennio Morricone, Antonio Carlos Jobim and avant-garde electronica...
went on to form the The High Llamas
The High Llamas
The High Llamas are a London-based musical group, formed by the Irish guitarist and songwriter Sean O'Hagan after the demise of his group Microdisney. O'Hagan writes and arranges the music and the rest of the group consists of drummer Rob Allum, keyboardist/cellist Marcus Holdaway, and...
, while keyboardist Katharine Gifford created Snowpony
Snowpony
Snowpony are a British indie rock supergroup initially formed in 1996 by Katharine Gifford and Debbie Googe.-History:Gifford, who at the time was in Moonshake, gave Googe a tape of songs she had been working on before Moonshake went on a US tour. Googe, who then had recently left My Bloody...
with a former member of My Bloody Valentine. Sadier herself has released three albums with her four-piece side-project Monade
Monade
Monade is a Bordeaux, France-based post-rock band which was initially a side project of Lætitia Sadier, a founding member of Stereolab. In the late 1990s, the All-City imprint released a 7" split of Monade's "Ode to a Keyring"/"Witch Hazel" [the a-side of the split featured materials by post-rock...
, whose sound Mark Jenkins called a "little more Parisian" than Stereolab's.
Despite earning critical acclaim and a sizable fanbase, commercial success eluded the group. Early in their career, their 1993 EP Jenny Ondioline
Jenny Ondioline
Jenny Ondioline is a 1993 EP by the Anglo-French band Stereolab. Its tracks were later re-released on the Oscillons from the Anti-Sun compilation.-Track listing:# "Jenny Ondioline "# "Fruition"# "Golden Ball" [Studio]# "French Disko"...
entered the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
, but financial issues prevented the band from printing enough records to satisfy demand. When Elektra Records
Elektra Records
Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....
was closed down by Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
in 2004, Stereolab was dropped along with many other artists, reportedly because of poor sales. Since then, Stereolab's self-owned label Duophonic
Duophonic Records
Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks Limited, known as Duophonic Super 45s, is a London based independent record label formed by the British pop group Stereolab...
has inked a worldwide distribution deal with independent label Too Pure
Too Pure
Too Pure is a London-based independent record label that was formed in 1990 by Richard Roberts and Paul Cox.-History:Too Pure started off as a small experimental label and had built their reputation by releasing primarily alternative/independent music which they felt was being ignored by the major...
. Through Duophonic the band both licenses their music and releases it directly (depending on geographic market). According to Tim Gane, "... we license our recordings and just give them to people, then we don't have to ask for permission if we want to use it. We just want to be in control of our own music."
Selected discography
Stereolab released dozens of studio albumStudio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
s, EPs
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
, and single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
s in their career. They made it a practice to make almost all of their more obscure material widely available through compilations.
Studio albums
- Peng!Peng!Peng! is the first full length album from Stereolab, originally released in 1992. It showcases an eclectic variety of styles, from experimental pop to Krautrock to lounge.-Track listing:# "Super Falling Star" – 3:16# "Orgiastic" – 4:44...
(1992), Too PureToo PureToo Pure is a London-based independent record label that was formed in 1990 by Richard Roberts and Paul Cox.-History:Too Pure started off as a small experimental label and had built their reputation by releasing primarily alternative/independent music which they felt was being ignored by the major...
/American - Transient Random-Noise Bursts with AnnouncementsTransient Random-Noise Bursts with AnnouncementsOriginally released in August 1993, Stereolab's Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements was the group's major-label debut. The majority of the first 1800 vinyl copies had to be destroyed because of bad pressing quality...
(1993), DuophonicDuophonic RecordsDuophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks Limited, known as Duophonic Super 45s, is a London based independent record label formed by the British pop group Stereolab...
/ElektraElektra RecordsElektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009.... - Mars Audiac QuintetMars Audiac QuintetMars Audiac Quintet is an album by the band Stereolab, released in August 1994. Initial releases of the CD came with bonus two-track disk, the double vinyl album came with a 7'...
(1994), Duophonic/Elektra - Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1996), Duophonic/Elektra
- Dots and LoopsDots and LoopsDots and Loops is the fifth studio album by the band Stereolab, released in September 1997. Jan St. Werner of Mouse on Mars contributes to several tracks...
(1997), Duophonic/Elektra - Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky NightCobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky NightCobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night, released in 1999, is a studio album by the band Stereolab.- Track listing :All tracks by Tim Gane, Laetitia Sadier# "Fuses" – 3:40# "People Do It All the Time" – 3:42# "The Free Design" – 3:47...
(1999), Duophonic/Elektra - Sound-DustSound-DustSound-Dust is an album by the band Stereolab, released in late 2001. It was recorded with producer Jim O'Rourke and John McEntire.'Nothing To Do With Me' features lyrics derived from sketches by English satirist Chris Morris....
(2001), Duophonic/Elektra - Margerine EclipseMargerine Eclipseis an album by the band Stereolab, released in early 2004. The album is in large part a eulogy to Mary Hansen.-Track listing:# "Vonal Declosion" – 3:34# "Need to Be" – 4:50# "...Sudden Stars" – 4:41# "Cosmic Country Noir" – 4:47# "La Demeure" – 4:36...
(2004), Duophonic/Elektra - Chemical ChordsChemical ChordsChemical Chords is the tenth studio album by the band Stereolab, released in August 2008. The album title is referenced to by Tyler, The Creator during the final verse of "Fin," from The Odd Future Tape.-Track listing:# "Neon Beanbag" – 3:49...
(2008), Duophonic/4AD - Not MusicNot Music-Track listing:# Everybody's Weird Except Me# Supah Jaianto# So Is Cardboard Clouds# Equivalences# Leleklato Sugar# Silver Sands [Emperor Machine Mix]# Two Finger Symphony# Delugeoisie# Laserblast# Sun Demon# Aelita# Pop Molecules...
(2010)
Compilations
- Switched OnSwitched OnSwitched On is a compilation of Stereolab's first three releases, and was originally released in 1992. The album's name is in tribute to Switched-On Bach and other similar titles from the late 1960s to 1970s that feature Moog synthesizers as the primary instrument...
(1992), Too Pure/SlumberlandSlumberland RecordsSlumberland Records is an American independent record label formed in 1989 in Washington, D.C. area and currently based in Oakland, CA. The label has released recordings from artists including Velocity Girl, Honeybunch, Lilys, Stereolab, St... - Refried Ectoplasm: Switched On, Vol. 2Refried EctoplasmRefried Ectoplasm , released in July 1995, is a compilation by Stereolab of singles and rarities.-Track listing:# "Harmonium" – 5:55 ...
(1995), Duophonic/Drag CityDrag City (record label)Drag City is a Chicago-based independent record label. It was established with a Royal Trux release in 1990 in Chicago, Illinois by Dan Koretzky and Dan Osborn.Drag City specializes in experimental indie rock acts... - Aluminum Tunes: Switched On, Vol. 3Aluminum TunesAluminum Tunes is a double album collection of EPs and rarities from Stereolab, released in 1998.-CD 1:# "Pop Quiz" - 4:22...
(1998), Duophonic/Drag City - ABC Music: The Radio 1 SessionsABC MusicABC Music: The Radio 1 Sessions, released in October 2002, is a compilation by post-rock band Stereolab of BBC Radio 1 sessions recorded from July 1991 to August 2001...
(2002), Strange FruitStrange Fruit RecordsStrange Fruit Records was an independent record label in the United Kingdom.The label, established by Clive Selwood and John Peel in 1986, was the primary distributor of BBC recordings, including Peel Sessions....
/KochKoch RecordsE1 Music , the primary subsidiary of E1 Entertainment LP, is the largest independent record label in the United States. It is also distributed by the Universal Music Group in Europe under the name E1 Universal... - Oscillons from the Anti-SunOscillons from the Anti-SunOscillons from the Anti-Sun, released in April 2005, is a three-CD, one-DVD box-set collection of Stereolab tracks culled from eight of the group's EPs and singles...
(2005), Duophonic/Too Pure - Fab Four SutureFab Four SutureFab Four Suture is a compilation album by Stereolab, released in March 2006. It collects six singles and their B-sides originally released on 7-inch vinyl in 2005 and 2006.-Singles collected on Fab Four Suture:...
(2006), Duophonic/Too Pure - Serene Velocity: A Stereolab AnthologySerene Velocity (album)Serene Velocity is a compilation album by Stereolab, released in late 2006. It focuses on material released during the band's Elektra years.-Track listing:# "Jenny Ondioline, Pt...
(2006), Duophonic/Elektra/RhinoRhino EntertainmentRhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company. It is owned by Warner Music Group.-History:Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes...