Latest Release
- MAR 29, 2024
- 15 Songs
- Dots And Loops · 1997
- Emperor Tomato Ketchup · 1996
- Dots And Loops · 1997
- Emperor Tomato Ketchup · 1996
- Mars Audiac Quintet · 1994
- Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On, Vol. 2) · 1995
- Emperor Tomato Ketchup · 1996
- Emperor Tomato Ketchup · 1996
- Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements · 1993
- Emperor Tomato Ketchup · 1996
Essential Albums
- 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.
- A musical backstory that runs from krautrock to lounge and beyond.
- Retro sounds meet modern ideas.
- Hidden passageways between easy and uneasy listening.
Compilations
- 1993
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 British 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 college 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.
- ORIGIN
- London, England
- FORMED
- 1990年
- GENRE
- Alternative