Stereolab

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  • Emperor Tomato Ketchup
    Emperor Tomato Ketchup

    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 organization of society, “Les Yper Sound” allegorizes 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.

  • Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements
    Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements

    To get a sense of where Stereolab was 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 toward 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.

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About Stereolab

With their hypnotic rhythms and mesmerizing vocals, Stereolab became one of indie's most distinctive bands. On early releases like 1993's Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements, Stereolab combined '60s pop melodies with an art rock aesthetic that recalled Faust and Neu!; on 1996's Emperor Tomato Ketchup, they incorporated jazz, hip-hop, and dance music. Their approach grew increasingly experimental on 1997's Dots and Loops and 2001's Sound-Dust, but they eventually returned to a poppier style with 2008's Chemical Chords. Stereolab's unmistakable sound had a lasting impact: Pavement and Blur aped their style in the '90s, while J Dilla and Tyler the Creator sampled the band's music or collaborated with its members in the 2000s and 2010s. In the 2020s, Stereolab's steady stream of reissues and revival as a touring band reaffirmed their innovative reputation.

HOMETOWN
London, England
FORMED
1990

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