Latest Release
- 1 APR 2024
- 4 Songs
- Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage In the Milky Night · 1999
- Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On, Vol. 2) · 1993
- Mars Audiac Quintet (Expanded Edition) · 1994
- Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On, Vol. 2) · 1995
- BBC Radio Sessions - EP · 2024
- Dots and Loops (Expanded Edition) · 1997
- Dots and Loops · 1997
- Dots and Loops · 1997
- Emperor Tomato Ketchup · 1996
- Emperor Tomato Ketchup · 1996
Essential Albums
- One of Stereolab’s biggest contributions to the conversation was to prove that great music was less about developing new ideas than about rearranging old or forgotten ideas in wholly new ways. They weren’t alone, of course: The ’90s gave us artists like Air, Saint Etienne, Beck and dozens of others who made art from history’s trash and yoked together styles that felt like they belonged in different galaxies. (The sampled collages of hip-hop count here too—in all cases, it’s music, in part, about listening to music.) Nowhere had that possibility sounded more exciting than on Emperor Tomato Ketchup. Even as the band evolved (the jazzy density of “Cybele’s Reverie”, the off-kilter precision of “Motoroller Scalatron”), they retained a toylike charm, a scrappiness that made even their most complex tracks sound punk, the joyful noise of kids next door. They could make their biggest lyrical ideas sound fun (“Motoroller Scalatron” describes the material organisation of society, “Les Yper Sound” allegorises war as sport), and their chintziest musical ones sound not only sophisticated—because you only need so much sophistication—but approachable, music for and by the people. The overall sense—and the great charm of the band in general circa Emperor Tomato Ketchup—was that they felt utterly like a band, weirdos whose tendencies might have cast them out from society at large but who found strength and family in each other. You don’t just listen to Emperor Tomato Ketchup, you vote for it.
- To get a sense of where Stereolab were coming from early on, take a minute—18, actually—with “Jenny Ondioline”. Where The Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray” used drone to mimic the warm surge of a heroin high, Stereolab’s drone on Transient Random-Noise Bursts was healthier, cleaner, progress-oriented, but with just the slightest twist of retro—the sound of monorail demonstrations and microwave ovens, of a bright new plastic future. That the band’s lyrics tilted towards socialist readings (“Jenny Ondioline”), solidarity chants (“Analogue Rock”) and statements of political self-determination (“Our Trinitone Blast”) only supports the thesis that their propensity to play three chords for 10 minutes at a time was less an expression of being stoned than of being almost militantly unified: These were young, well-read bohemians prepared to change the world. And while they dove considerably deeper into kitsch as their career went on, you can hear the seeds of the fascination here—if not in Laetitia Sadier’s charmingly blasé delivery, then in the breezy French-ish folk-pop of “Pack Yr Romantic Mind” or “I’m Going Out of My Way”, which samples Perrey and Kingsley’s '60s-era rework of Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “One Note Samba”—the Rosetta Stone of easy listening for robots.
Music Videos
- 1992
- 1991
Artist Playlists
- The return of space age bachelor pad music.
- Retro sounds meet modern ideas.
- A musical backstory that runs from krautrock to lounge and beyond.
- Hidden passageways between easy and uneasy listening.
Singles & EPs
Compilations
More To Hear
- Annie serves up holiday memories and gives thanks for Stereolab.
About Stereolab
Blending electronic experiments with simmering grooves, philosophical lyrics and the occasional guitar freak-out, Stereolab have been among the most influential avant-pop acts since the early ’90s. Guitarist and songwriter Tim Gane formed Stereolab with vocalist Lætitia Sadier in 1990 after the breakup of Gane's leftist indie-pop outfit McCarthy. The group’s debut EP, Super 45, was issued on the band’s label, Duophonic, in 1991, and a few singles and EPs came out before Peng!, their first album and inaugural release on the then-nascent London indie Too Pure, arrived in 1992. After firming up their lineup with drummer Andy Ramsay and keyboardist/vocalist Mary Hansen, Stereolab’s 1993 EP Space Age Bachelor Pad Music brought lite-jazz sounds inspired by the likes of Esquivel into their sonic mix. Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements followed later that year. Anchored by the churning, motorik-powered epic “Jenny Ondioline”, Bursts was a hit on alternative radio and in the press, as were their subsequent albums, Mars Audiac Quintet and Emperor Tomato Ketchup. Dots and Loops veered further into the easy-listening sounds Stereolab had dabbled in earlier. In 2002, Hansen was killed in a bicycle accident; the 2004 album Margerine Eclipse included “Feel and Triple”, a tribute to her. Stereolab released two more albums that decade, then went on hiatus in 2009; they regrouped in 2019 for festivals and headlining tours.
- FROM
- London, England
- FORMED
- 1990
- GENRE
- Alternative