The Stereolab Albums Poll

Best stereolab album (till the 20th of may)

how do you differentiate one from the other??

what awesome album covers.

Before anyone says anything: The three compilations included in here aren't a hits collection but a compilation of songs from eps and singles that can't be find on any of their albums so it doesn't count as cheating.

#1 w/ a bullet
1993 Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements

next group (kinda interchangeable, all great)
1992 Peng!
1992 Switched On Stereolab
1993 The Groop Played "Space Age Batchelor Pad Music"
1996 Emperor Tomato Ketchup

rough ranking of next bunch of stuff, like all of these fine, not blown away
1994 Mars Audiac Quintet
2008 Chemical Chords
2004 Margerine Eclipse
2001 Sound-Dust
1999 Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night

meh:
2000 The First of the Microbe Hunters
1997 Dots and Loops

haven't spent enough time w/ Aluminum Tunes 2 & 3, Not Music, Fab Four to rank those soundly

Aluminum Tunes Switched On 2 & 3

sound-dust!

Top 10 for me:

1 Peng!
2 Dots and Loops
3 Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On, Vol. 2)
4 Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements
5 Mars Audiac Quintet
6 Emperor Tomato Ketchup
7 Margerine Eclipse
8 Sound-Dust
9 Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night
10 Chemical Chords

how can you rank Peng at 1 but not have the first Switched On in the top 10? If anything, Switched On is slightly better than Peng but they're basically the same record.

my top 5:

1. Mars Audiac Quintet
2. Switched On Stereolab
3. Aluminum Tunes
4. Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements
5. Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On, Vol. 2)

proper LPs, ranked:

1993 Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements
1996 Emperor Tomato Ketchup
1994 Mars Audiac Quintet
1997 Dots and Loops
2004 Margerine Eclipse
2008 Chemical Chords
1993 The Groop Played "Space Age Batchelor Pad Music"
1992 Peng!
2006 Fab Four Suture
2001 Sound-Dust
2000 The First of the Microbe Hunters - (technically an EP, but whatev)
1999 Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night

(I haven't yet listened to Not Music)

Top 5:

1. Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On, Vol. 2)
2. Peng!
3. Emperor Tomato Ketchup
4. Mars Audiac Quintet
5. Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night

Don't think I've heard the first Switched On, actually. Nor have I heard much of their post-2000 output.

how can you rank Peng at 1 but not have the first Switched On in the top 10? If anything, Switched On is slightly better than Peng but they're basically the same record.

― brotherlovesdub

To be honest I haven't listened to the first Switched On yet... reason I've not included it. I promise I will finally get to it this weekend.

1. Switched On
2. Peng
3. Mars A Q
4. ETK
5. Dots and Loops
6. Transient
7. Space Age
8. Refried Switched on 2
9. Aluminum Tunes
10. Not heard anything post Aluminum Tunes that I wanted to hear a second time

transient random etc. etc. followed by dots & loops

Absolutely everything they've done is worth hearing, if you like them. Although the post-Sound-Dust albums feel just so less inspired..

Cobra.

Dots & Loops is my personal favorite, but I haven't listened to them in years.

They were unbelievably fresh through Mars Audiac Quintet and began showing a preference for quantity over quality circa Refried Ectoplasm singles into Emperor Tomato Ketchup. They tried to reinvent themselves shortly afterward to great bouts of inconsistency and it was just a chore to keep up from that point on. I got to see them live in that middle era when they were really a tight unit.

I miss Mary Hansen very much.

mostly OTM altho I disagree about the quantity over quality through ETK caveat

not including ETK & D&L in their 1990s run of excellence is madness

surely there is at least one other person here who thinks the dots to sound-dust run was their peak? cobra is a great album to get lost in, dots is a mastery of form and sound-dust is just pure beauty.

that's where I got off the bus tbh. THey lost me with Dots and Loops

Just voted for Dots...it is beautiful!

unbelievably fresh through Mars Audiac Quintet

No doubt. And it was partly through this expanding scope. I only got into them when Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements was out, but looking back, that stuff was quite an achievement in building on what they did on their early records. And then Mars Audiac Quintet was even bigger.

surely there is at least one other person here who thinks the dots to sound-dust run was their peak? - I dig some Tortoise & High Llamas, but John McIntire & Sean O'Hagan were collectively the worst thing to ever happen to the groop imo.

surely there is at least one other person here who thinks the dots to sound-dust run was their peak? cobra is a great album to get lost in, dots is a mastery of form and sound-dust is just pure beauty.

My favorite period is 1994-2000; Sound Dust was the first album of theirs I found disappointing.

I'd love if ILM polls could give you two or three voting options instead of one.

This is a massively tough one. On different days I'd pick Switched On (v.1), Dots/Loops, Mars Audiac or even Margerine Eclipse.

Despite being a superfan for a long time, I just couldn't get into Chemical Chords and have yet to hear either of the records adjacent to it. However, I have a hard time believing that they could be as good as the above.

Basically I stopped giving a shit about Stereolab around the time of D&L (which even now strikes me as a profoundly unexciting record) and like most people I never bothered much with their recent records:

1) Switched On
2) Transient
3) Mars Audiac
4) Peng
5) Refried
6) ETK
7) Aluminum
8) Low Fi (not sure why Bachelor Pad is present and this isn't--they are both EPs)
9) Bachelor Pad
10) The remix EP of Miss Modular is probably the best thing they did post-97

On Sound Dust:

I get it's probably a transitional sort of album but adore it for its ambition. It might not work flawlessly through the whole album
but Space Moth, Captain Easychord and Baby Lulu are all classic Stereolab songs imho. Also 'Suggestions Diabolique' might sound clumsy here and there but I think it's one of their most complex pieces.

1) and 2) is basically a tie at this point. I think at the time Transient came out I thought it was the best, but the early singles are what I probably pull out more these days so really that should get my vote.

factoring in the comps, I may have to vote for Refried Ectoplasm - I really think that it stands as the strongest intersection of their best traits & neatly bridges the stylistic gap b/w MAQ & ETK. plus, French Disko!

My stock answer is MAQ (heard it first, still love it), but I can only have this as my stock answer by justifying that Switched On vols. 1+2 are not "albums", and since they are here in the list, daaamn... may have to go Refried Ectoplasm, but feel pretty sad not voting for the other two as well

so yeah, my top 5 is MAQ, Switched On, Refried, Peng, ETK but it really pains me to pick an order (except ETK is probably last and I still love it)

shit I left out TRNBWA. never mind. too hard. and if EPs should be included, then Fluorescences is also pretty cool.

Fluorescences was the moment that I fell in love w/ the Lab.

surely there is at least one other person here who thinks the dots to sound-dust run was their peak? cobra is a great album to get lost in, dots is a mastery of form and sound-dust is just pure beauty.

yah id agree w/ this - at the v least dots & cobra are the ones i like the best

Refried Ectoplasm has Harmonium, John Cage Bubblegum, French Disko, plus the best bit of TRNBWA is reprised in Exploding Head Movie: these alone would be a pretty damn good case for best, but there usually isn't a single track I'm tempted to skip, unlike some of the others

MAQ 4 me

for me, dots & loops is where they went from being awesome to being pleasant

Mars Audiac Quintet was the first Lab album I've heard, perhaps that's why it's still my favourite.

x-post Dots and Loops really divides people, doesn't it? I'm right in the middle 'Lab era, owning only Mars, Emperor and Dots; I've never much backtracked (not a fan of Jenny Ondioline tbh) nor gone foward (bits I sampled seemed pretty samey.) So not really qualified to vote...

Transona Five is one of the best schaffel-beat songs ever. I love MAQ, but I can only really listen to it in chunks..

I'm a fan, and I love certain songs, but I don't think I've ever evaluated them as albums. "How do you differentiate one from the other??"--I'm somewhere close to there, but in a good way.

I can't believe the amount of haters 'dots and loops' has in here. It's one of my favorite records by them because it feels to me like a big step for them. Every album they made before you could pinpoint most of their influences - krautrock, samba, velvet underground, garcia esquivel, 60's am radio, etc... - and I feel that 'dots and loops' marks the moment where all those elements that had shaped up their songs until then stop acting as a crutch* and actually develop as a unique sound.

* Don't really know the actual english word for what I'm trying to say. In spanish 'muleta' or 'crutch' refers to a sort of phrase or action that is constantly repeated by a person, sort of a bad habit. A catchphrase or 'catchaction' so to speak.

"actually develop as a unique sound"

It's a boring sound.

I also don't have an issue with being able to pinpoint a band's influence.

Esp. when I think all the influences are awesome and doing some interesting with them.

can I just say that I'm lmao @ the huge variance in opinions itt so far. srsly, ilx, way to keep a good poll interesting!

I voted Dots & Loops, but probably bcz it was the only album of theirs I was able to find for a couple of years. My friends hated it, they called it "French Jamiroquai."

"French Jamiroquai"!

It's a boring sound.

Alex totally OTM about their "influences", sound, etc.

everything I've read about Tim Gane's current method of composing (eg, taking a several seconds-long sample, telling the band to replicate a sound/part within that sample, and then randomly rearranging the resulting parts) perfectly explains why their later stuff sounds tuneless, shapeless, and unappealing to me. It's like the quintessential empty gesture/excercise.

Actually like that record a lot, though not as much as Refried, ETK, TRN..., MAQ, etc. Sheesh, what choices. Also, LOVE Aluminum Tunes, esp. "Klang Tone".

It was an easy choice for me: Transient Random Noise Bursts if only for the full version of Jenny Ondioline, which I first heard while driving around and it tranfixed me so much I actually had to pull the car over and just listen.

"French Jamiroquai"!

b-but Transporté Sans Bouger was on a different album!

(ho ho etc)

(you don't understand, Travelling Without Moving is the name of my dog)

tee hee hee

I was there at the start with the singles 20 years ago and they've never really "lost" me the way they did others, though I do understand the criticisms of the post-McIntire sound. The absence of the Charles Long collaboration (Music For The Amorphous Body Study Center)*, which I love to bits, pushes me towards Sound-Dust as their pinnacle. Yeah, sentimental to a certain extent (Mary's swansong), but it's just gorgeous. Refried and Transient would round out the medal places.

(* - OK, it was included in full on Aluminum Tunes but that's not uniformly great...as wonderful as that triple vinyl smells...still)

Switched on vol 2 (kinda) easily

It is The Groop Played CD or Refried Switched On Volume 2. They're both pretty much perfect but I'm gonna go for the former because it was the first Stereolab I ever heard and I'm not sure anyone else will vote for it. "We're Not Adult Orientated" FTW!

like all such polls, i wonder how closely it corresponds to 'album i heard first' (my vote for tr-nbwa does)

my list is almost exactly the order i heard them.

I heard the singles on Switched On before I heard anything else, but otherwise the order is pretty random. It took me a while to hear MAQ for some reason.

I still have the swirly pink Big Money single of "Light That Will Never Cease To Fail" b/w "Au Grand Jour", I think.

nah a day smothered with corpses = the marxist thing to do peace ketchup

oh god the motorik stuff is going to win this isn't it

etk will win cause it's the casual fan favorite

whereas I feel like it feels like the greatest hits album of a band that isn't as good as stereolab

oh god the motorik stuff is going to win this isn't it

guitars rule

1997 Dots and Loops
2004 Margerine Eclipse
2008 Chemical Chords
2001 Sound-Dust
2006 Fab Four Suture
1996 Emperor Tomato Ketchup
2000 The First of the Microbe Hunters
1998 Aluminium Tunes
1999 Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
2010 Not Music
1994 Mars Audiac Quintet
1995 Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On, Vol. 2)
1993 Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements
1993 The Groop Played "Space Age Batchelor Pad Music"
1992 Switched On Stereolab
1992 Peng!

space age batchelor pad music was the first stereolab i heard. a revelation at the time. still sounds absolutely perfect to me.

I feel like they should have saved that name for the dots and loops album

sound dust for me as well.

downloaded the demos thing, eaten something, last night. is this official?

Voted for Emperor Tomato Ketchup, it's my third favourite album of the 90's.

My top five would be:

1.Emperor Tomato Ketchup
2.Dots & Loops
3.Sound Dust
4.Margerine Eclipse
5.Transient Random Noise Bursts

I haven't heard a couple of the mini albums listed here. Fab Four Suture would be my least favourite.

Still haven't been able to decide between Peng! and Emperor Tomato Ketchup. Not sure the tie will ever be broken.

Transient for this guy. I tend to like the earlier stuff better than the post-Dots stuff, which is generally pleasant but not terribly engaging to me. I think the later albums would be more effective if they were reigned in to more concise 45-minute runtimes (and yes, I am aware that my favorite is over an hour long, but it's their most motorik-heavy so it works). The last one I messed with was Sound Dust.

Dots and Loops 4-ever for me.

(I've always been fond of Josh Kortbein's defense of the album.)

To which I extended the following argument (here -- though I should note that I'm not particularly proud of the essay overall):

Kortbein is right to focus on rhythm as the component that makes Dots and Loops stand out, but he doesn’t extend this idea far enough. I don’t think he is suggesting that the beats on other Stereolab albums are any less prominent; as far as I can see, the difference is that “Jenny Ondioline” and “Metronomic Underground” use rhythm in a linear fashion, whereas Dots and Loops treats it circularly. To clarify, lots of the band’s work, and especially the early stuff, is devoted to a groove, but it’s a straight, immediate, almost mechanical 4/4; you bob your head as it pushes forward, like a car zooming down an empty highway or a train rapidly clicking past each rail. Whereas on Dots and Loops more than half the songs are in some other time signature (variations on 5/4 more common even than variations on 3/4), and even the songs that aren’t tend to hold back from emphasizing any particular beat too strongly, which creates a peculiar decentering effect. The rhythm is urgent and cyclical, but you’re not always sure where the cycle starts; rather than tilting ahead, you let yourself float, as though in a whirlpool.

Margarine Eclipse has grown to become a real solid bedtime album for me. At this stage I've probably listened to it more than any of the other albums, though (given I'm usually falling asleep) not as closely as my earlier favourites like ETK and Transient.

xxpost: good reads, never really noticed it but the focus on beats is otm. The rhythm design in Dots and Loops is very specific to the overall sound and has some particularities which no Stereolab record up to that point had done before. It does mark a swift from rock experimentalism into electronica.

jaymc otm, D&L really does some great things with unconventional time signatures. I wish they'd gone further in that direction before buggering off into bossa nova jazz.

I think the later albums would be more effective if they were reigned in to more concise 45-minute runtimes (and yes, I am aware that my favorite is over an hour long, but it's their most motorik-heavy so it works). The last one I messed with was Sound Dust.

― International Waters, Tuesday, 15 March 2011 02:27 (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

All the albums after Sound-Dust are less than an hour long.

I'd stick with my ranking of a few years ago except to add the most recent couple to the bottom and flip Peng! and Emperor Tomato Ketchup to put ETK back on top where it belongs.

I love the weird production on Peng!, and the songs are just better than Switched On.

I think the problem with their recent music is these endless, aimless modulations that leave all their songs feeling diffuse. Like I'm looking forward to Tim "discovering" soul or dub reggae or whatever just to start grounding the songs in popular music again.

i like the three comps more than any of their albums proper. then it's transient -> etk -> peng -> not music, then the rest, then CPGPVITMN way way down the bottom

i think cobra & phases is by far my least favourite record by any band i have really loved

mars probably belongs before peng there

Aluminium Tunes is pretty good but the second disc is a bit meandering. Oscillons makes a great single album once you cut out all the alternate versions of singles and such. Serene Velocity is pointless if you have all the normal albums.

Not Music is the first slab album in 15 years that I've not been able to extract any joy from at all. It does almost nothing for me and I don't know why.

Gotta say, after "Transient", "Music For The Amorphous Body Study Center" blew my head off. It felt like they were synthesizing a number of lines of musical thought on that one into a different take on their krautrock mutation. I never felt they bettered it after it came out.

I still haven't heard Not Music--the only 'lab disc I've not listened to. From what I understand it's all stuff from the Chemical Chords sessions. I went back over the weekend and revisited Chemical Chords and remembered just why I never put it on--I can't stand the way that most of the songs just end, abruptly after 3 minutes or so. I thought I had a preview copy when I heard the mp3s--bought the record and it made just as little sense.

i think not music craps all over chemical chords. i probably like it more than anything they've done since ETK tbqh

I take it back I haven't heard Fab Four Suture either.

Fab Four Suture (FFS, lolariously) starts and ends with the most fantastic whackjob of a march ever. It's not terribly cohesive as an album but still great. Plastic Mile is one of the top five songs they've ever done.

Chem Chords is brilliant but you can't very well become absorbed in the short songs the way you can with say Margerine Melodie or Refractions in the Plastic Pulse.

It's not terribly cohesive as an album

well, it is technically a singles collection

Yeah. I still regard it as an album as that was the planned result of all the singles, even though it doesn't work like one (although it definitely feels more like an album that the six-track Kybernetica Babicka release a few months before).

orright i'm just getting geeky now

I hadn't even heard of that one, guess I've been out of the labloop for a while

Was just trying to figure out what the Macedonian flag reminded me of, then realized it looks like a detail from the Peng cover:

http://www.mapsofworld.com/images/world-countries-flags/macedonia-flag.gif

top 5 today :

01. transient random noise
02. cobra and phases group (the first one i heard. and the one i listened to the most, despite the fact that is too long in runtime)
03. dots and loops
04. mars audiac quintet
05. margerine eclipse

never cared that much about 'etk' tbh/dunno why, really

I still love playing Excursions Into "Oh, A-Oh" from Fab Four, which recreates the experience of turning off their later crap (and actually the start of Excursions is pretty decent) and blasting the wonderful Switched On instead. I wonder if other people have the exact opposite reaction.

I also kind of wonder if they did this trick elsewhere, since I haven't listened to all of their late albums w/great attention. "Excursions" is really pretty cool in the way it suddenly turns into old style Stereolab, pretty much on a dime (at 3:20 in), while still referencing the newer sound...

This is a really tough one to decide. Here's how I group these.

Top Tier:
1993 Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements
1996 Emperor Tomato Ketchup
2001 Sound-Dust

Nearly as good:
1992 Peng!
1994 Mars Audiac Quintet
1997 Dots and Loops
1995 Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On, Vol. 2)
1998 Aluminum Tunes
1999 Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night

All the music they've done since Sound-Dust I've liked a bit, but don't love. I think the loss of Mary Hansen really hurt them as a band and they haven't ever truly recovered.

Tosh, the last two albums are fantastic.

i always vacillate between Transient, Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Mars Audiac Quintent. Today it's Mars.

Next Switched On will be called 'Constant Vacillations'

hi boob oscillator

hi

oscillator say hi to boob

oscilator iirc

'Sound Dust' is massively underrated...it got me back into Stereolab after unloving them 'cause of 'Dots and Loops'.

fake Stereolab song titles

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Transient Ambient all the way. I was ambivalent about all their albums after that one.

Cobra was the first one where I was like "Hmm, they seem to be slipping a bit here" and, though there are moments of it I really like, I never quite warmed to it. And I've never really formed an attachment to anything since. Dots & Loops could have better songs, but that is a sonic masterpiece IMO, really next-level production. Probably Switched On Vol. 2 is my favorite now.

In retrospect I should have voted dots and loops.

oh wait... i think I just did... mmm apparently I got to vote twice ...

This poll... :-/

Had to go for Dots and Loops in the end, after battling off Emperor. But really, this is one of the most impossible polls ever on ILM.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

rockists

run tell dat

I've always kinda found the love for Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements - I remember the band considering it something of a failure, had issues with the production, felt some of its experiments were not successful, etc. MAQ and ETK seem much more focused imho.

found the love odd, that should say

decided today that i really, really hate cobra and phases group

ETK is fantastic and deserves its place here. MAQ is half pop and half drone, so for me it doesn't flow as an album. TRNB has good moments but is a pretty niche experience.

xp Cobra & Phases is horribly engineered, all thin and reedy. It works for the atmosphere but there's a whole bottom end missing imo.

CHALLOPS

I want to know who the other four Cobra voters are.

i had them killed

fucking hell - three! I was a proud part of the four.

xp Transient is clearly, surely not a 'pretty niche experience'. I think its win here confirms that it's the Stereolab album that lots of different groups of listeners have affection for. And it's also possibly their tightest wall-to-wall full-length listen.

I wouldn't define the sum total of ilx as 'lots of different groups'

Not me, but I could've been. Cobra is Stereolab at its proudest free-jazziest moment and it's sublime.

xp

I can see how it's 'niche' in the wider scheme of all music released ever, sure. But I wouldn't characterise it as niche within their catalogue, no way. I think it's so widely beloved because it's as good (or better) a rock album as a pure pop one.

also it was my first (used, from the late b&d records of springdale, pennsylvania)

xp fair point

also it was my first

this is what I attribute the RTNBWA love too mostly, tbh. Seems like they first reached most people's attention with Space Age Bachelor Pad (that was certainly the first time I'd heard of them) and then the full-length fulfilled msot people's expectations.

I first them basically by accident flicking through my iTunes (I'd downloaded it a general grab-bag of acclaimed albums). A true head-turning moment.

*WITH a

also it was my first

I dunno -- I voted Transient not because it was my first (that was Switched On and the Peel Sessions disc w/ Faith Healers and PJ Harvey) but because it was the culmination of that initial sound of droney organs and loud guitars and whatnot. I fell off after Cobra, but even MAQ was a slight step back from that initial sound that I fell in love with. All of the albums have something I like about them, but that 91-93 run was just my favorite of theirs.

:/

1998 Aluminum Tunes 0

my first was the super-electric EP, which i still adore (and all of switched on) but i had to vote for refried because revox/farfisa/harmonium are some of the most amazing sounding tracks by anyone ever

seriously revox still melts my face off

Still don't love love later Stereolab, but I've been listening to the Sound-Dust on records and these are still totally respectable (albeit not one in the class of their pre-D&L work). Thinking I'm especially liking this odds & sods record Not Music.

does the character on the peng and switched on covers have a name?

Think it was Cliff.

http://stereolab.koly.com/exhibits/images/clifforig.gif

science!

I want all of these on vinyl! Even the eps would look amazing on any record collection:
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g28/manicdogbertpurchases/stereolab3.jpg

Anyone knows if there are any stereolab reissues coming anytime soon?

Rose My Rocket Brain, Solar Throw-Away and Free Witch & No-Bra Queen are fantastic.

Oh and no word on new releases or reissues that I've seen.

reissues of what? all the albums are in print, although there's probably enough of the tour singles etc to justify another switched on collection

I meant vinyl reissues. I might be wrong but last time I checked any of the top 3 winners on this poll (transient random, dots and loops, emperor tomato) sell for over $50+ as they've been out of print for a while.

There was mention of remasters/reissues when the break up was announced.

Found the article ...

http://pitchfork.com/news/34993-stereolab-go-on-hiatus/

"According to Pike, the band also plans both a new entry in their Switched On compilation series and a "remastering of the back catalogue." "

Yeah but it all seems to have stopped.

This has inspired me to revisit their later material, especially the singles. Will report back.

Oh, anyone have their "Godzilla Theme" track?

I want all of these on vinyl! Even the eps would look amazing on any record collection:

I don't know any of these but goddamn they all LOOK amazing! this band has always had such a wonderful design sense.

had no idea ETK vinyl was going for $50+, that's crazy.

$75 on Amazon! nuts

I have The Underground is Coming 7" that i'd happily sell/trade.

anyone have their "Godzilla Theme" track?

Yes. It's probably the most 'abstract' thing released in their name. Technically, it's a Tim Gane remix - and sounds like it.

So I checked out a sampling of album cuts from the last 10 years and was nonplussed. Then I put together a compilation of compilation, rare and singles tracks and, as expected, was duly impressed! Here's what I wound up with, sort of a 21st century Switched On:

1. Old Lungs (V/A - All Tomorrow's Parties)
2. La Spirale (Margerine Eclipse JP bonus track)
3. Rose, My Rocket-Brain! (tour single)
4. Banana Monster Ne Répond Plus (tour single)
5. University Microfilms International (tour single)
6. Variation One (V/A - Moog)
7. Dimension M2 (V/A - Disko Cabine)
8. Mudra (V/A - Dimension Mix)
9. Solar Throw-Away (tour single)
10. Jump Drive Shut Out (tour single)
11. Spool Of Collusion (Chemical Chords bonus single)
12. Forensic Itch (Chemical Chords bonus single)
13. The Nth Degree (Chemical Chords JP bonus track)
14. Magne-Music (Chemical Chords JP bonus track)
15. Explosante Fixe (tour single)
16. L'exotisme Interieur (tour single)

Some of it brings back the feel of their guitar-laden heyday, some tones down the blips and bloops and let's Laetitia shine, while other just lay out a great groove. Only one or two aren't that interesting - good to know there's still a future comp for me to buy!

I'm such a zealot for them (even still) that this shit be Sophie's Choice, for me.

Where did you get these?

Just, when you say you "checked out" these, from where? They're not on Spotify...

Slsk is my source if Spotify fails for checking stuff out.

Agreed those covers look fantastic all together.

Surprised by Dots & Loops' showing on this poll. Prevailing wisdom at the time was it was their first bonafide dud.

sometimes prevailing wisdom is horribly wrong

sometimes it is horrifyingly right, as was the case with D&L - a record I never want to hear again.

feel bad for people who can't appreciate 1997-2001 period stereolab

the idea that anyone could like stereolab and not think 'miss modular' is amazing makes zero sense to me

I don't remember people hating on D&L at all. The serious backlash started with "Cobra and Phases Group", but even that one had plenty of great songs, it was the McEntire/O'Rourke blippy bloopy production that had gotten out of control and basically ruined the album. Those songs rocked when they performed them live.

oh thank god they were recovered for rock

"I don't remember people hating on D&L at all. The serious backlash started with "Cobra and Phases Group""

D&L was definitely perceived as being a step back from ETK (and everything that came before.)

I like Miss Modular, it's most of the rest of the album I can't stand

ehh I don't think you can deny that this group has a tendency to be pretty boring

i think somebody could

they could say "i deny that this group has a tendency to be pretty boring"

see how easy it wd be?

makes ya think

like I just listen to stuff like "Outer Accelerator" and think, oh look, another 3-chord midtempo "Hallo Gallo" riff

Did the Miss Modular remixes ever make it onto a Switched On comp?

so listen to their stuff that isn't a 3-chord midtempo hallo gallo riff. they have a lot of songs.

I dunno if they have more stuff like ETK I'll like 'em but right now Transient Noise Bursts and Mars Audiac both keep to rip Faust and Neu! so much that I can't really wring any enjoyment out of it

what faust song is 'Des Étoiles Électroniques' ripping off

reducto ed absurdum or however that goes, there is way more to these guys than Faust and Neu! rips

sigh I didn't say "literally every song" , I'm just saying they have a limited bag of tricks and a lot of them are making 'new' versions of "Hallo Gallo" and "Krautrock" adinfinitum

xp which makes me think I'm listening to the wrong albums

I dunno if they have more stuff like ETK I'll like 'em

so you prefer Yoko Ono & Kraftwerk rips over Neu! and Faust rips

thing is they were always ripping stuff, just depends on yr familiarity with the source material

Did the Miss Modular remixes ever make it onto a Switched On comp?

No. And they're damn good - and I'm in the anti-Dots & Loops camp with Shakey!

thing is they were always ripping stuff, just depends on yr familiarity with the source material

^^^

I bought ETK and Dots and Loops at the same time and like both almost equally. if anything I listen to D&L more nowadays - much more low key, easy listen.

thing is they were always ripping stuff, just depends on yr familiarity with the source material

― zappi, Monday, October 3, 2011 11:30 AM (28 minutes ago)

List The Direct References of Stereolab

I don't remember people hating on D&L at all. The serious backlash started with "Cobra and Phases Group", but even that one had plenty of great songs, it was the McEntire/O'Rourke blippy bloopy production that had gotten out of control and basically ruined the album.

Those two albums basically coincided with The High Llamas' Cold & Bouncy, which bloops and blips its way across six thousand hours of pretty much exactly the same vibe, so I think O'Hagan is to blame here (NB: I use the term 'blame' loosely as D&L and C&B are two of my favourite albums of all time).

Re ripping stuff off: many yonks ago I heard Krzysztof Komeda's Fearless Vampire Killers composition that Stereolab hooked for Flower Called Nowhere. It's really just the same thing with added swishing noises. Game admitted to that one though.

i don't mind D&L, sometimes i really enjoy it, but i still can't bear C&PG. it seriously disagrees with me, and is literally their only release i out and out dislike.

Yeah, too long, too harsh, too self-conscious. I can still peel maybe five songs off it and get a buzz, but as a piece it's an irritating chore.

A Couple times I 'hated' the album on first hearing, then loved it the very next time.

D&L I didn't go for, it wasn't until many years later hearing it in a second-hand shop, thinking "that's great actually" and bought it again.

Only just found out about the double vinyl reissues of Transient and Mars. More albums to follow apparently.

…But apparently they are nothing to do with Stereolab and may just be mastered from the CDs…

http://www.discogs.com/label/1972

Ugh, why do they even bother?

New Laetitia Sadier album is out today - anyone heard it?

yes! haven't really absorbed it but it was sounding great on the first couple listens.

Thank you this thread for inspiring me to obtain/listen to "Transient Blah Blah with Announcements" - it's so good!! It's better than Peng!!

Also got Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Dots and Loops, and Mars Audiac Quintet.

u win

fuck you brent http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/7498-cobra-and-phases-group-play-voltage-in-the-milky-night/

Cobra and Phases is the best Stereolab album by a country mile

People should be aware of how brilliant Margarine Eclipse is.

"Puncture in The Radak Permutation" and "The Emergency Kisses" are all-time Stereolab tracks.

xxxxp $90k plus bennies from what I hear though, to be fair.

Oh and yes I ADORE Margerine Eclipse, Cosmic Country Noir is all-time.

^ OTM

I think Margerine Eclipse is a solid 7/10, but "Feel and Triple" nearly brought me to tears the other night.

I still think Sound-Dust is their best album. Everything about it bowls me over: the arrangements, the lyrics, the Mary's backing vocals--"Nothing to Do With Me." I still can't believe many rate it as one of their worst. That Cobra and Phases Review is ridiculous, not to mention unreadable (a classic Brent D. quality). Wasn't he just following his masters at the NME?

it's a testament to the band that so many of their late-period records mentioned over the last few posts are deemed their best. The truth is any one of them (up to Margerine Eclipse imo) could be considered their best.

Cobra is my favorite but I think this is a genx-geny divide. Or an indie rock/chill lounge divide.

Love all the early rocking stuff too, of course, but by Cobra the rock was pretty much gone

Sadly haven't explored much further, although I love Captain Easychord

there's also a divide btwn people who experienced Stereolab in realtime and people like me that discovered them after they had gone on hiatus. i understand why people hate everything after Mars Audiac Quintet because the shift in sound & style is pretty dramatic between that and ETK.

As someone who saw and heard them from the very early days it was Cobra that lost me a bit, I need to give it more of chance some time. Because of that it wasn't until later that I caught on to Margerine Eclipse.

Surely everybody loves ETK.

"Cobra" was definitely the point at which I stopped caring about their albums, but all their later period EPs and tour singles are chock full of their best stuff from the time. It's like they saved up the quirkier tracks for the dedicated fans.

Fantastic sounding record, that Margerine. Dual mono ftw.

Dots and Loops was the turning point imo.

Loved the Lab from Super-Electric on but oddly enough I kind of tuned out around the Mars period - loved ETK but when Dots came out I was already a big MoM and Tortoise fan so it was a bit of a dream team and I still see it as a high water mark, on the right day Diagonals is my favourite Lab track. Sound-Dust is gorgeous too. Can't get to Cobra and a few things around there (Instant 0, Microbe Hunters) but the last two albums are also great. Consistent taste, not much!

Diagonals is so great

I wanted to like Dots more and played it a lot but it wasn't Autoditacker or even Millions Now Living. Another one I might have to revisit.

Yeah, it's no secret I'm a massive Sean O'Hagan admirer, and I think sound-dust has his fingerprints all over it. People seem to neglect to mention that he's involved in nearly all their stuff, even the early albums, so I think it's unfair to blame him for whatever developments occurred later in their career. I do think Tim and L Safire wanted to pull the band in that direction in the end since they actually wrote most of the songs...

Sadier*

Fab Four Suture is probably my least favorite album, and it lacks O'Hagan...

Fantastic sounding record, that Margerine. Dual mono ftw.

― Noel Emits, Saturday, February 11, 2017 3:52 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Never heard this - what is 'dual mono??'

For all the songs, they recorded a full band's worth of tracks on the left channel and a completely different set of tracks on the right. So everything is hard-panned left and right but sounds like one coherent song. It's an interesting approach and generally sounds good, although the songs tend to be a bit busy.

wow! Need to hear that. Thanks!

Fab Four Suture does have "Excursions Into Oh, A-Oh" which is one of the few final Stereolab tracks to truly rock.

Stereolab were a truly great band to see live - I saw them on "Fab Four Suture" tour and it really helped to make sense of their discography. Hearing 'Jenny Ondioline' and Dots & Loops material in the same set showed they could tap in and out of their sound evolution pretty seamlessly.

xp Moodles I think they just created two mono mixes of each song from the multitracks, emphasising very different elements for each, then placed them L/R as the stereo mix. So it's not like they recorded separate versions, and the instruments which are present in both mixes (e.g. lead vocal, drums) end up somewhere in the middle of the stereo field because they are in both ears. If it was all hard panned it would be pretty unpleasant on headphones, a la early Beatles albums in stereo, but there are definitely elements present in each mix which are absent from the other. The mixes sound good isolated if you have the right kind of mono selection on your hi-fi.
Hairsplitting much? yes guilty.

I'm not sure exactly the process they followed to record it, but the left channel has vocals, synths, bass, guitar, drums that are completely different from the right channel. For example, there are full (and different) drum tracks on each channel.

Surely everybody loves ETK.

― Noel Emits, Saturday, February 11, 2017 8:44 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Emperor Tomato Ketchup was where I got on board back in the '90s, but I went backwards in the discography before I went forwards, so I generally have a fondness for that stuff. I like some of the post-Dots and Loops stuff, but not all.

I didn't so much get off the bus as much as pop off the bus to go get a can of coke at a mandated rest point, fully intending to get back on at some point.

I think it was 'cobra and milky bar' or whatever, there's a small number of subsequent albums, there's still time..

Actually, just saw again the pic up top..

Hmm, quite a few. And a perfect square.

Not many I don't have, actually.. The one with biscuits.. Actually, didn't that one come out on 7" singles? Mmm, yeah.

Three, then. Including one of the early ones.

Lester Bangs eat yr heart out..

Moodles holy shit, I think you are right and I apologise for "correcting" you. Only the basslines seem to be in both channels.

I love ETK, but it will never be my favourite - something about the sequencing slightly bugs me, and Cybele's Reverie (a great single) just doesn't fit with the rest of the LP. Margarine Eclipse is the opposite - nothing really stands out, but it all flows together perfectly.

Revisiting Sound Dust now, so much better than I remember. Having fun looking thru the credits on it and Cobra and finding out which songs Jim O'Rourke produced.

"Sound Dust" is definitely one of my favourite Lab records. I've said before that it's a perfect winter/snow album - "Suggestion diaboloque" has an awesome jingle bell like funk break.

I think all of their albums are consistently fantastic, Chemical Chords + Not Music included.

but I think Mars is my fav.

^ Agreed. It's a shame Tim Gane said that he felt that it was time to take a break as it seemed like they had reached a certain end stylistically (to paraphrase). I don't think the final albums were dull or samey at all.

Not Music is the only one that feels half baked. There is an inconsistency in the production and sound. pretty bad cover & title. The remixes make it feel like a bonus disc. It's still pretty good but the attention to detail is not quite there.

agreed for the most part, but "Everybody's Weird Except Me" is one of my favorite Stereolab songs. Love the way the bass sounds on it, and it's a great opener.

The songs are good. I love the emperor machine remix track bit it doesn't feel like it belongs on a Stereolab album.

Refried Ectoplasm was always my favorite. Might not flow like an LP, but that collection was in many ways their most Krautrock. I listened to that one over and over doing these fixes on a book on third shift in a publishing house for a couple weeks not long after I graduated college while being amazed by how fast the internet was on a T3 in the middle of the night when you are one of the few on a network.

my problem w Stereolab from Dots n Loops on can, I suspect, be traced to Gane's increasing fascination with really bizarre compositional approaches ie

TG: Well, towards the end of Stereolab, I was deliberately causing so many problems on purpose [in terms of songwriting techniques]. I tripped myself up from about 2004 onwards; everything was really just a game from that point...

The recordings Stereolab were making were getting more and more avant-garde. In fact, for that last album, no songs were actually written. Everything was done by chance. I put fifty different chords on paper and I mixed with fifty different rhythms from drum machines or samples and we picked them out randomly and put them together, and then we decided to record only on piano or vibraphone and every song existed originally like that. I think that was a really good method! And then we had to add things to them so I made some more rules… but it still came out sounding like [it did] and that's when I knew things needed to change. I couldn't circumnavigate around this thing anymore no matter how much I tried to set up obstacles for myself. So, the band's sound just comes out and, as soon as Laetitia starts singing, it sounds like Stereolab and that's great but it's more difficult in other ways because you're just really stuck.

I mean that just sounds like a stupid way to write songs to me, it might be an interesting challenge for the musicians but the end-result isn't likely to *sound* particularly good - and instead what you hear is the tension/frustration he describes, between the identifiable elements of the band (Sadier's voice etc.) and these practically schizophrenic attempts to get away from that. it just doesn't make for an absorbing listen.

or this:

For instance, on the new record… I started an idea that’s kind of like an excavation. What I do is I cut a very very tinyloop/sample, and I just glue them together so there’s maybe eight ofthem in a row, and that’s maybe lasting about a second or a second and a half. And the kind of blurred sound gives it something you can’t really precisely put your finger on, it’s a strange kind of loop. And then I pitch-shift them up and down to make a chord. And then all we do with the band, is we just listen really closely to what we can hear,and try to reproduce it. I liken it a little bit to a sort of pop-art thing, where you’re recreating a commercial product, but in a painterly way. So instead of doing it with MIDI, we’re actually playing these tiny little things that we think that we can hear, with real instruments. For instance, there’s a track on the new album called "Pop Molecule," which is created in this way.

is just... waht. so convoluted, and not necessarily going to produce something that sounds good.

he's talking about Chemical Chords there, right? i haven't checked that one out, it really seems like he got lost down the rabbit hole... not sure if it was in this thread or the main Stereolab thread, but someone had a comment (probably years and years ago) about Cobra and Phases being the first time that the band sounded earthbound instead of outer space alchemists, and idk I couldn't disagree more... Cobra and Phases is such a great listen all the way through, consistent and yes sounding totally extraterrestrial and in total control of their powers. "Fuses" is such a killer opener... re-listening to Sound Dust and I dig it more now, but it's definitely a lesser version of Cobra and Phases imo...

yeah that last quote is re: Chemical Chords - the first quote is more recent though and is not in reference to a specific album afaict

well I take that back I guess when he says "last album" he must be referring to Chemical Chords

although I guess it could be Not Music too...? idk

both albums were recorded at the same time, I think Not Music was basically the leftovers album from the Chemical Chords session

Mars Audiac Quintet is their best album, IMO.

Have been on a Stereolab bender since this thread revive. Lots of love for Peng! and Chemical Chords actually. Amazing that they were so good for so long, and maintained their vision.

Not for me, it's gotta be "Transient". I love MAQ and ETK but they smoothed out their sound on them and "Transient" retains their essential weirdness and edge (for lack of a better word).

Really, though, the best stuff is on their singles. I could probably own only the Oscillons box and be happy.

"Transient" probably my favourite overall as well, just because "Pack Yr Romantic Mind" is the essential Stereolab track IMO

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08dns54

Tim Gane and Sean O'Hagan (with some other High Llamas and Serafina Steer) performed a Basil Kirchin tribute a couple nights ago. You can hear a piece of it at 55:30. It's really lovely. I hope there's an album. Apparently they were all originals in the style of Basil Kirchin aside from a cover of "I Start Counting" with Jane Weaver on vocals.

Ahh, I desperately wanted to go to the Kirchin event but I just couldn't get there due to work. It sounded like an amazing weekend.

Related, I just found out Sean wrote a song for Yo Gabba Gabba!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkxIEC_l9r

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkxIEC_l9rI

I think I've arrived at

1. Dots and Loops
2. Sound-Dust
3. Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
4. Margerine Eclipse
5. Instant Holograms on Metal Film

I had a real moment with Cobra and Phases this morning. A very long, labyrinthine record to really get lost in.

Not in this order:

Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
Dots & Loops
Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Fab Four Suture
Refried Ectoplasm

… but Margerine Eclipse belongs in this conversation

Cobra and Mars are my 1 and 2

I love a few songs on Emperor but have always found it kind of a slog, especially the 2nd half. It’s not the album, it’s me.

I hated Cobra for the longest time and then something clicked and now it’s bad ass.

transient remains undeniable

Cobra is one of a few ‘Lab albums that seems to work best as a suite of songs, as a whole

Dots and Loops just gives me emotions that I rarely access, and that I have to be prepared for. I can’t just listen to this album any old time. I loved it from the day I bought it—midnight release party at Volt Records in Danbury, Ct.

Bjork’s Homogenic came out the same day. What a time to be alive.

Folks feeling free to say that ETK is not necessarily the bees knees and that Cobra was actually pretty good, or better. Maybe this is why I've persisted with ILM for decades. :)

Love 'em all, but Cobra has always been my favourite.