STEREOLAB PAGE
I'm partial to the tracks with vocals/chanting/humming, without it's just not quite the full lab. I've underlined the tracks I consider essential (which can be quite a few).  Stereolab: Switched On (1992, Too
Pure/Slumberland 22)This is a compilation of the groop's earliest single releases which began with Au Grand Jour (two versions), Brittle, and The Light That Ceases To Fail. This was followed by Doubt, and Changer. Super Electric and The Way Will Be Opening are quality additions. + + + + |
 Stereolab: Peng! (1992, Too Pure 11)The first album. I am fond of that Stomach Worm which is about jealousy, while The Seeming And The Meaning is meaningful. Peng 33! is inspiring and You Little Shits is bitterly cosmic. This is classic as well as accessible, but looking back a little bassier than other recordings by the group. + + + + |
 Stereolab: Low Fi (1992, Too Pure 14) "the western world is going more and more right wing/within ten years we'll have a war" from Laisser-faire says it all. Mary joins! + + |
 Stereolab: Space Age Bachelor Pad Music (1993,
Too Pure 19)Let the title fool you. You can hum along when The Groop Play Chord X but I liked U.H.F. - MFP best. + + |
 Stereolab: Jenny Ondioline (1993, Duophonic UHF CD01)Ooh, the first 'duophonic' CD. I liked it because it has French Disco and it matches the drapes, but now I like French Disko version (available on Refried Ectoplasm) best. Fruition is here too. + |
 Stereolab: Transient Random-Noise Bursts With
Announcements (1993, Elektra/DUHF CD02)Another surprising sound-product. Pack Yr Romantic Mind is profound yet catchy, and you'll chant along with Analogue Rock and Going Out Of My Way. "Get all those ghosts out of my sight, They devour all of my might." + + + |
 Stereolab: Ping Pong (1994, Duophonic UHF CD04)"There's nowt wrong wi' bein' daft." A 'single' mostly for the addicts. Has Moogie Wonderland and Pain Et Spectacles. + |
 Stereolab: Mars Audiac Quintet (1994, Elektra/DUHF CD05)This is as accessible as it gets I guess. Starting with Three-dee Melodie, Des Etoiles Electroniques and International Coloring Contest (search: Lucia Pamela) are gold. Ping Pong and Wow And Flutter are here too. + + + + + |
 Stereolab: Wow And Flutter (1995, Duophonic UHF CD07)Also primarily for the addicted I'd think with Heavy Denim and Nihilist Assault Group (Parts 3, 4, 5). + |
 Stereolab: Music For The Amorphous Body Study Center (1995, Duophonic UHF CD08)"A collaboration between Stereolab and the New York Sculptor Charles Long. Stereolab provided the music for Sculptures made by Charles." Tracks: 'Pop Quiz', 'The Extension Trip', 'How To Play Your Internal Organs Overnight', 'The Brush Descends The Length', 'Melochord Seventy-Five', 'Space Moment', 'Untitled'. UNREVIEWED |
 Stereolab: Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On Volume 2) (1995, Duophonic UHF CD09/Drag City)You get John Cage Bubblegum Music and French Disko and oodles of other rarities in a homely and hard to read cardboard folder. + + .5 |
 Stereolab: Cybele's Reverie (1996, Duophonic UHF CD10)This is essential for the beautiful Brigitte. + + .5 |
 Stereolab: Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1996, Elektra/DUHF CD 011)The big seller but not a sell out; an eclectic unruly mix. Noise Of Carpet (the video was neat), Les Yper-Sound, Motoroller Scalatron (chant on). + + + + .5 |
 Stereolab: Laminations (1996, Elektra, Promo PRCD 9706-2)Released to promote the U.S. tour of October and November 1996. Contains three top drawer tracks not available elsewhere. One Small Step is stunning really and surfaced in some car commercial in N. America. Check and Double Check is also an essential track to have plus there is Cadriopo. + + + + .5 |
 Stereolab: Fluorescences (1996, Duophonic UHF CD14)Bright orange colors, "I looked at the sun through filters", Flourescences. You Used To Call Me Sadness. It's all more than quite good. A 'single' release not connected to any album. + + + + .5 |
 Stereolab: Miss Modular (September 1997, Duophonic UHF CD16)This is useful to have because of the tracks Allures "one day, in the big world!", Spinal Column and Off-On. Companion to Dots and Loops. + + + + + |
 Stereolab: Dots and Loops (September 1997, Elektra/DUHF CD17)I love this CD way too much. The whole thing is brilliant and reminds me of charmed summers in the 1970s with gaudy green plastic patioware. Diagonals. Feel the heat radiating from a deserted sidewalk? Prisoner of Mars. Hear the slightest shiver of a breeze rattling a celophane kite in the trees? The Flower Called Nowhere. Somewhere people are celebrating an anniversary of a nation, but you aren't there. Brakhage. Bliss. + + + + + |
 Stereolab: Miss Modular (November 1997, EastWest Japan)Some remixes and a 'Single Version' of Miss Modular. Contranatura (Prelude To The Autumn Of A Faun Mix makes this at least interesting. It's always something, and this is something. + |
 Stereolab: Turn On (1997, Duophonic UHF CD18)Some new excursions in sound with O'Hagan, Gane and Ramsay. Ru Tenone is the one with Laetitia. + + |
 Stereolab: The Free Design (1999, Duophonic UHF CD22)You get Escape Pod From The World Of Medical Experiments, and With Friends Like These. I'm glad. + + + + .5 |
 Stereolab: Cobra and Phases Group Play (1999,
Elektra/DUHF)This is at times discordant and at others soothingly electric. Am I pretentious yet? Not a particularily good choice for an introduction to the groop maybe (try Mars Audiac Quartet or Peng for that), but there are surprises. People Do It All The Time burrows in while Infinity Girl kind of sparks all around. Strobo Accelerator, Blips Drips And Strips, and Op Hop Detonation are good flashback material for me as well. I liked it. "Revive the old idea that we carry." + + + + .5 |
 Stereolab: The First Of The Microbe Hunters
(2000, Elektra/DUHF)This collection of material was a disappointment somehow, but even saying that it is still not a CD I would ever be rid of. Much of the material seemed a rerun though; a rerun of Space Age Bachelor Pad Music? However I did think Barock - Plastik and Household Names stood out in the melodic mode, and Nomus et Phusis held interest for awhile. Incomplete? + + + |
 Stereolab: Captain Easychord (2001, Duophonic UHF CD26)Long Life Love is a great Laetitia and Mary number, and Canned Candies is interesting. + + + .5 |
 Stereolab: Sound-Dust (2001, Elektra/DUHF)The groop expands in an original way mainatining a high standard. The Black Arts whines nicely, Baby Lulu swings, Space Moth is cataclysmic, and the full length Captain Easychord is essential. + + + + + |
 Stereolab: Margerine Eclipse (2004, Elektra/DUHF)Tracks: 1. Vonal Declosion 2. Need To Be 3. Sudden Stars 4. Cosmic Country Noir 5. La Demeure 6. Margerine Rock 7. Man With 100 Cells, The 8. Margerine Melodie 9. Hillbilly Motobike 10. Feel And Triple 11. Bop Scotch 12. Dear Marge |