|
(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Summary.
Stereolab were not the first and were not the only ones, but somehow they came to represent a nostalgic take on Sixties pop music that employed electronic rhythms and arrangements. Built around the collation of keyboardist Tim Gane (ex-McCarthy) and French vocalist Laetitia Sadier, i.e. the juxtaposition of hypnotic, acid instrumental scores and surreal, naive vocals, as refined by their early EPs Super 45 (1991) and Super-Electric (1991), Stereolab walked a fine line between avantgarde and pop. As they continued to fine-tune the idea on Peng (1992), echoing the trance of the Velvet Underground, Neu and Suicide, while increasing the doses of electronic sounds, Sadier's voice became a sound and an instrument, contributing more than catchy refrains to the allure of the mini-album Space Age Batchelor Pad Music (1993), the aesthetic manifesto of their chamber kitsch. Stereolab probably reached their zenith with the singles of John Cage Bubblegum (1993) and Jenny Ondioline (1993), that inspired the stylistic tour de force of Transient Random Noise Bursts With Announcements (1993). Stereolab had coined a new musical language, as austere as classical music and as light as easy-listening. New keyboardist Katharine Gifford contributed to the elegant and smooth sound of Mars Audiac Quintet (1994), their most accomplished fusion of nostalgy and futurism, although not as innovative as the previous album. Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1996) was even more impersonal, pure sound for the sake of sound, pure abstraction of kitsch music.
Stereolab injected Soft Machine's progressive-rock, Terry Riley's minimalism, Neu's robotik rhythm, Pink Floyd's pastoral psychedelia into the fragile melodic skeleton of British pop music.
Full bio.
Stereolab invented an unlikely compromise between krautrock of the 1970s, the early Moog experiments of those same years, the new wave of a few years later, and French pop music of the 1960s. In the tradition of similarly erudite and intellectual bands such as Soft Machine, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, and Roxy Music, Stereolab performed a vivisection and amputation operation on 1990s rock similar to the one that had been performed by progressive-rock in the 1970s. With them, progressive-rock actually received its first real boost since the heyday: instead of the dynamics of jazz, it was German bands (Can, Faust, and especially Neu) and American minimalism (Terry Riley) that provided the pretext.
Stereolab originated from the meeting of two characters who could not have been more different. Tim Gane was a veteran of the Marxist band
McCarthy.
Laetitia "Seaya" Sadier was a French backup singer in the same group.
In 1990 they came together and formed what seemed like yet another dream-pop lineup (female singer, surreal melodies, psychedelic arrangement).
Instead, since the earliest EPs and singles, later collected on
Switched On (Too Pure, 1992 - Slumberland, 1992 - Too Pure, 2005), the group's polyphony adopted a format in which instrumental and vocal parts complemented each other in surreal ways.
On the EP Super 45 (Duophonic, 1991)
the raga of
Brittle
(Velvet Underground-style) and the Middle Eastern psalm of
Au Grand Jour
were only the appetizers for the far juicier jam of
The Light That Will Cease To Fail, a festival of psychedelic effects: swirling gyrations of guitars, hypnotic pulsation of drums, circular warbles of chant and countermelody, epic chords of an organ with an "acid" timbre.
On the other hand,
the convent-like vocal harmonies and B52's easygoing pacing of the single
Doubt,
belong to a lighter side of their art.
The schizophrenia continued on the EP
Super-Electric (Too Pure, 1991): on the one hand the tender nursery rhyme of Super-Electric, over a rapid boogie quiver of guitars, and on the other hand Contact, a long, almost solely instrumental cosmic-lysergic digression in exciting crescendo. Another EP, Lo-Fi (1992), containing
Laisser-Faire, completed the group's maturation.
The sound of Peng (Too Pure, 1992) is an experimental blend of styles,
drenched in echoes of Velvet Underground (particularly Perversion)
and Suicide (particularly The Seeming And The Meaning), sometimes with
synthesizers in the foreground.
The balance between avantgarde and pop, between electronic nightmares and
bubblegum tunes, is reminiscent of similar endeavours of the new wave.
Their variant is best exemplified by Super Falling Star
(vocal harmonies, hypnotic strumming, organ drone),
Orgiastic (rising and descending vocals, tight guitar boogie),
and, first and foremost, Stomach Worm
(pounding rhythm, mirrored lullabyes, accelerated Velvet Underground raga).
Stereolab's songs are gentle and fragile, built on childish singing and
unimaginative rhythms. Somehow such unspectacular foundations yield mesmerizing
results.
The band rarely exceeds in experimental affectation.
Even when (K-Stars, Mellotron, Surrealchemist)
extra doses of Kraftwerk and Can threaten to dissipate the song structure,
a center of gravity is always maintained, the jamming never derails, the noises
never alienate.
Notwithstanding their musical achievements, the success of lighter singles such
as Harmonium (Duophonic) and Low-fi (Too Pure) gave
Sadier's vocals the charisma of a trademark sound, and Stereolab
came to be identified with her abstract humming more than with their
progressive-rock scores.
|
If English is your first language and you could translate
my old Italian text, please contact me.
Scroll down for recent reviews in English.
|
Forte della nuova tastierista Mary Hansen, del nuovo chitarrista Sean
O'Hagan ( High Llamas) e del batterista
Andy Ramsay, il minialbum
Space Age Batchelor Pad Music (Too Pure, 1993) continua la progressione
verso un sound piu` austero e meno pop, piu` da camera che da discoteca.
Ronco Symphony e
We're Not Adult Orientated trovano lo scatto selvaggio
e la grinta boogie per mettere in orbita dei raga memorabili.
Ma il gruppo finisce talvolta per fare dell'involontario kitsch
(Avant-Garde MOR, che e` proprio cio` che dice il titolo, e
le soporifere variazioni della title-track),
o, meglio, come dice il singolo coevo, della John Cage Bubblegum.
L'ensemble e` in splendida forma nel
singolo Jenny Ondioline, un lungo, estenuante e febbricitante delirio
che li consacra fra i grandi sperimentatori del momento.
Da li` prende l'abbrivo
l'album Transient Random Noise Bursts With Announcements
(Elektra, 1993), un tour de force di composizione e arrangiamento.
A forza di essere bizzarro ed eccentrico, il gruppo
finisce per comporre musica da camera per strimpellio incalzante di chitarra
elettrica, distorsioni d'organo alla Suicide e litania alla Nico in
Tone Burst,
oppure per rock and roll alla Suicide
e per baccanale di chitarre alla Sonic Youth in
Our Trinitone Blast,
oppure per boogie di White Light White Heat (Velvet Underground)
e melodia di Broadway in
I'm Going Out Of My Way.
Ma alcuni brani hanno assimilato lezioni piu` profonde, e al centro c'e`
sempre la percussivita`:
Crest ha il piglio dadaista dei primi Soft Machine, ma lanciati in un
vortice dei Neu;
Golden Ball ha il crescendo piu` marziale,
con le dissonanze che salgono poco alla volta in superficie;
e la piu` complessa di tutte le partiture,
Analogue Rogue, e` quasi un collage
(organo da requiem, incalzante cadenza ferroviaria, figura minimalista della
chitarra, gorgheggi gregoriani).
Pack Yr Romantic Mind e` invece lounge music atmosferica.
I singoli Lo Boob Oscillator (SubPop) e French Disko (Duophonic)
sembrano quasi autoparodie, visto che si limitano a dissezionare il loro stesso
stile e proporlo in un formato piu` accessibile.
La nuova tastierista Katharine Gifford ha un impatto decisivo sul sound
elegante e fluente di Mars Audiac Quintet (Elektra, 1994),
In quel limbo fra trance trascendente e antiquate sonorita` pop,
fra futurismo e nostalgia, che e` diventato il loro paradiso artificiale,
gli Stereolab scolpiscono Ping Pong, il brano melodico che ruba
qualcosa a Up And Away dei Fifth Dimension, e lo strumentale
Fiery Yellow, che scimmiotta l'exotica.
Il revival fa leva su due pilastri referenziali: il
canto di Sadier, che imita spesso lo stile degli anni '50, e le
tastiere, prediligono i timbri naif degli anni '60, quelli di
Moog, Farfisa e Vox.
Le composizioni tendono a ripetere sempre gli stessi trucchi, e` il
loro metabolismo a determinare se rimangono canzoncine nostalgiche o se
diventano piece surreali.
Sadier intona la
filastrocca per bambini di Three Longers Later accompagnata soltanto da
un organo e da un controcanto di "la-la-la". Un simile girotondo, fatto
riciclare su se stesso in maniera ipnotica con un forte "drone" di sottofondo
e armonie vocali femminili da anni '50 in lontananza da` vita a
Three Dee Melodie.
Il loro nuovo marchio di fabbrica e` la trance, ottenuta
accoppiando i "drone" delle tastiere a una cadenza martellante, seguendo le
intuizioni di Velvet Underground e Neu.
Wow And Flutter non fa che sovrapporre
una melodia ariosa a questo "motore". Si riconosce il ritmo forsennato di
Sister Ray in Nihilist Assault Group, e la variante dei Feelies in
Outer Accelerator.
Transona Five e` invece un jug elettrico a meta` strada
fra On The Road Again (Canned Heat) e Spirit In The Sky (Norman Greenbaum),
di nuovo avvolto in strati di gorgheggi celestiali.
Anamorphose getta la maschera e si rifugia nel minimalismo (organo e voci)
del primo Terry Riley.
Giocando sui timbri e sui ritmi, come avevano propugnato i grandi
complessi tedeschi degli anni '70, gli Stereolab scoprono una rotta
meno battuta, e piu` ardua, all'estasi.
Il chitarrismo ritmico di Gane conduce le danze, le tastiere statiche e
poco melodiche di Gifford colorano lo sfondo di tonalita` grige,
i gorgheggi di Sadier rievocano chanteuse e ragazzine "ye-ye" d'altri tempi.
Ridimensionando i due elementi piu` sfruttati dai complessi britannici
della loro generazione (la melodia e l'arrangiamento),
gli Stereolab pervengono a un nuovo linguaggio rock, tanto austero quanto
la musica classica, ma tanto lieve quanto la musica leggera.
Per quanto molto ridimensionato, il progetto dell'EP
Music For The Amorphous Body Study Center (Duophonic, 1995),
colonna sonora per uno spettacolo di arte-performance, e` ancora quello
(con sezione d'archi).
Gli Stereolab hanno ampliato enormemente il loro territorio originale.
Il risultato e` pero` che le canzoni di
Emperor Tomato Ketchup (Elektra, 1996) sembrano fin troppo impersonali.
A forza di espandersi in tutte le direzioni, viene a mancare un cuore.
Il minimalismo meccanico, privo di emozioni, palafittato su sincopi funky, di
Metronomic Underground e` fin troppo futurista, mentre
Cybele's Reverie, uno shuffle dinoccolato in stile anni '60 che viene depistato da una sezione d'archi, e
Noise Of Carpet, un banale garage-rock, sono fin troppo mondane.
Percolator, Spark Plug e soprattutto la title-track sono le composizioni in
cui il gruppo ritrova per qualche minuto l'equilibrio dei bei tempi.
La base ritmica alla Suicide di Olv 26 sospinge la melodia piu` celestiale del disco.
Morgane Lhote ha preso il posto di Gifford.
Duncan Brown (basso) e Andy Ramsey (batteria) rimangono
a cementare una sezione ritmica d'acciaio, e Mary Hansen al controcanto
completa il sestetto.
E` soprattutto sul ballabile che si accanisce la strategia di Gane e compagni,
riprendendo un discorso di decostruzione del genere avviato (su direttrici
diverse) dalla "no wave" americana (Contortions, Love Of Life Orchestra, etc).
Esce anche una collaborazione con i Nurse With Wound,
Simple Headphone Mind (Duophonic, 1996) con una lunga suite,
Trippin' With The Birds, che va annoverata fra le cose migliori del gruppo.
|
|
(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Stereolab and Ui formed Uilab, documented on the EP Fires (1997), mainly devoted to covers of Brian Eno's St Elmo's Fire.
On Dots And Loops, Stereolab immediately abdicates the sweet, futurist
harmony it had coined on Emperor Tomato Ketchup and refolds
"lounge" into
relaxed, disengaged cocktail kitsch. The minimalist "Brakhage," the warbled,
polyphonic "The Flower Called Nowhere" and the exotic accents of "Prisoner Of
Mars" exploit the same formula to the point of nausea: a light, funky rhythm,
an arrangement that's a little bit kitschy, and a rolling chorus. At its
best, it plays out in a song like "Miss Modular," which sounds like a '60s
television theme song.
Forgiving the frequent mishaps of the album's first half, Stereolab crown
Dots And Loops
with the nine-minute "Contronatura." They employ the same
blueprint as on most of the other songs, but this time it's with a more
intellectual feel - on a stubborn strumming of guitar and hallucinogenic,
droning keyboards.
And if that's not enough, there's a lenghty "Refractions In The Plastic Pulse,"
which deconstructs yet another kitsch-y theme (as if Stereolab allegorically
reneged their whole album) through opera-style falsettos, aquatic electronics,
dreamy dub pulses and tiny, incidental cacophonies.
Two producers lent their knobs: John McEntire of Tortoise in Chicago and
Andi Toma and Jan Wermer in Dusseldorf, better known as Mouse On Mars.
Don't be surprised if Stereolab sounds alternatively American post-rock
and German electronica.
Guitarist Gane recorded Turn On (Duophonic, 1997) with
Andrew Ramsey of the High Llamas.
Katharine Gifford, Debbie Googe (My Bloody Valentine), Debbie Smith (Echobelly, Curve) and Kevin Bass (Rollerskate Skinny) formed Snowpony that released The Slow Motion World (1998) and Sea Shanties For Spaceships (2001).
The two CDs (or three records) of Aluminum Tunes (Warp, 1998) collect
rarities.
Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night (Elektra, 1999)
continues to indulge in thie trademark outdated easy listening revisited
from a post-modern perspective and arranged in ever more baroque fashion.
The opening novelty, Fuses, represents their genre at its best, thanks to
a tourbillon of drums, a quasi free-jazz fanfare and a vibes leitmotiv echoed
by the singer in free vocalizing.
Ten songs later, the album closes with Come And Play In The Milky Night,
sung in the same style, as if to close the circle.
In between these two tracks the Stereolab indulge in the usual mastery of
mimetism.
People Do It All The Time and Spiracles play again with
the laziest tones of the Sixties' easy listening, except the keyboard are
free to improvise avantgarde patterns.
Infinity Girl and to some extent Puncture and
Caleidoscopic Gaze turn the joke into serious art, thanks to the complex
counterpoint of voices.
The basic ideas of their songs are elementary. They are complicated, and
promoted to intellectual exercizes, by a combination of references to
minimalism, to Zappa's orchestral scores, to Canterbury's difficult harmonies.
The Stereolab can thus tackle both brasilian pop
(Free Design) and funk (Blips Drips And Strips) without falling
into the trivial.
The dadaist tone of Italian Shoes Continuum,
haflway between Art Bears and Frank Zappa, crowns the trick.
The new tour de force, Blue Milk (eleven minutes), lays a bridge between
Terry Riley's minimalist suites and Velvet Underground's tribal ragas:
a highly erudite essay, but interesting mainly to professional critics.
By now, everything comes easy to the Stereolab. They can orchestrate their
scores blindfolded. But there isn't basically a single note that we have
not head before on their albums.
The six short tracks of the mini-album
The First Of The Microbe Hunters (Duophonic, 2000) are either
a little too light (Intervals) or
a little too unfocused (Retrograde Mirror Form),
like so many of their recent recordings.
One gets the feeling that Gane is composing these songs while cooking pasta
or watching tv.
Only the nine-minute exotica instrumental Outer Bongolia
(a collaboration with High Llamas)
is up to their standard.
(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Luckily, Sound-Dust (Elektra, 2001), that boasts collaborations from
John McEntire and
Jim O'Rourke, doesn't sound like a Stereolab
album at all.
The dramatic departure is evident from
the somber instrumental ouverture Black Ants In Sound Dust, that sounds
like a Steve Reich ensemble rehearsing the instruments and the motifs of a
minimalist piece.
Spacemoth articulates the new collage-driven aesthetics:
a horn-based New Orleans funeral march and a harpsichord-like music-box melody
lead to a looping percussive pattern spun according to the
repetition/variation techniques of minimalism, while Laetitia Sadier cantillates
with the aseptic tone of Art Bears-ish progressive-rock.
Only towards the end does Laetitia Sadier hum one of her trademark lullabies,
but it almost sound like a goodbye to a style or a nostalgic last look.
Propelled by a solemn piano figure and enchanting
Enya-esque backing vocals,
Captain Easychord alternates reggae horns and languid country rambling.
Syncopated dance rhythms, jazzy keyboards and Brazilian vocals populate
The Black Arts. Minimalist repetition, cool jazz, Brecht-ian
cantillation and exotic beats invigorate Gus the Mynah Bird.
The multi-part vocal score of Suggestion Diabolique is set within
a chamber concerto that runs the gamut from minimalism to dissonance.
Les Bon Bons des Raisons seems to close the album with an austere
austere and at times baroque summary of its repertory.
Sure, Baby Lulu and Hallucinex
retreats to Stereolab's old trick of meshing debris of
lounge music, easy-listening and film music of the 1960s (and the songs
do lend the album an overall lighter, brighter feeling),
sure a few of the songs meander uncertain between old and new territory,
but this remains a rebirth of sort,
that relegates the chirpy melodies to expedients and
one in which Sadier's monotone singing becomes a weakness and the band's
compositional skills reach for new formats.
Mary Hansen died in 2002.
The EP Instant 0 in the Universe (Elektra, 2003) shows a little bit
more verve in Mass Riff and Sudden Stars.
Margerine Eclipse (Elektra, 2004) is the kind of album that musicians
who have nothing new to say put out simply because they don't want to leave
their fans without an album for too long.
Vonal Declosion is classic Stereolab (which, at this point, is not
even necessarily a compliment) and Margerine Rock is mildly original;
but tracks such as
La Demeure, Cosmic Country Noir, Hillbilly Motorbike and
Feel and Triple
are mere repetitions of Stereolab cliches without the same imagination of
a tribute band, and a suite such as Dear Marge is a confused medley
of styles (even disco-music a` la Moroder).
Monade was
a collaboration between Pram's Rosie Cuckston and Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier
that released the albums
Socialisme Ou Barbarie (Bedroom, 1996),
A Few Steps More (Too Pure, 2005).
and
Monstre Comic (2008).
Oscillons From The Anti-Sun (Too Pure, 2005) is a 3-cd box-set of live
Stereolab performances.
Fab Four Suture (2006) compiles singles, especially
Excursions into `Oh, A-Oh' and Kyberneticka Babicka.
Serene Velocity (Rhino, 2006) is a Stereolab retrospective.
Gane and Sean O'Hagan of the High Llamas composed the soundtrack for Marc Fitoussi's film La Vie d'Artiste (2007).
Stereolab's bassist Simon Johns formed Imitation Electric Piano that
released
Trinity Neon (Drag City, 2003) and
Blow It Up Blow It Down Kick It 'Til It Bleeds (Drag City, 2006).
Andy Ramsay and Simon Johns formed Europa 51
with Mary Hansen, Dominic Murcott and John Bennett, a Stereolab-like
band documented on Abstractions (2003).
Johns and guitarist Andrew Blake formed Imitation Electric Piano that released
Blow It Up, Burn It Down, Kick It 'Till It Bleeds (2006).
Stereolab's
Chemical Chords (2008) was a humble and unpretentious collection of
simple danceable melodic ditties that sometimes sound like a clever take on the new generation's electroclash
(Self Portrait With Electric Brain, Cellulose Sunshine, Daisy Click Clack, Valley Hi, Pop Molecule, Nous Vous Demandons Pardons)
plus some less obvious constructs
(Neon Beanbag ,
One Finger Symphony,
Silver Sands).
Laetitia Sadier debuted solo with
The Trip (Drag City, 2010), a collection of ethereal chants.
The litany embued with a fatalistic spleen of One Million Year Trip
can decay either into
the philosophical mood of Brazilian pop (The Natural Child) or
into the joyful lounge-pop of the 1960s (Fluid Sand, the stand-out).
Her humbly aristocratic melodies can rely both on
a sort of impotent country-rock By the Sea
as well as on a sort of seductive digital funk music Un Soir Un Chien.
There is too little, though, both in terms of vocal skills and in terms of
musical construction to manifest an artistic soul.
Stereolab's Not Music (Drag City, 2010) is and sounds like a collection
of leftovers and remixes (especially a ten-minute version of
Silver Sands) from the previous album.
Sadier's Silencio (Drag City, 2012) rediscovered
stereotypes of vintage easy-listening music
and revisited them with quasi-orchestral pomp.
The political overtones of the lyrics didn't come through as her forte.
Her next solo albums were rather mediocre affairs:
Something Shines (2014) and
Find Me Finding You (2017).
A collaboration between Sadler and film-maker David Thayer resulted in the politicized We Are Divine (2014), credited to the Little Tornados.
Relocating to Berlin, Gane formed Cavern of Anti-Matter with drummer Joe Dilworth and keyboardist Holger Zapf and the trio veered towards the avant-rock of
1970s Germany (Can, Faust, etc) on
Blood-Drums (2013),
Void Beats/ Invocation Trex (2016) and
Hormone Lemonade (2018).
|
|
