Stereolab

“I think we’re not savvy enough in terms of computers, having a blog, showing ourselves. I think we’re missing out on that a bit.” Laetitia Sadier, the immediately recognisable singer with avant-pop darlings Stereolab is discussing the band’s low profile. “Radiohead - they’re really taking their fate into their own hands. I think they’re a really good example of people who know what they are doing and are really successful at it. And I find that we’ve always done the music and when it comes to the marketing we leave it to someone else, it’s not our job.”

For almost twenty years now, Stereolab’s brand of retro-futuristic space-pop has kept writers like myself searching for new ways of saying the same thing. As is the case with The Fall, their records are always changing, and yet somehow always the same. You know there will be French lyrics, xylophones, buzzing guitars and ancient synths and improbable songtitles (‘Puncture In The Radax Permutation’, ‘Lo Boob Oscillator’, ‘The Noise of Carpet’ and so on). Likewise, you can be guaranteed gorgeous tunes, glorious string-arrangements and “alittlebitofpoliticsladiesandgentlemenyesindeed”, as Ben Elton would once have had it.

Since forming from the embers of McCarthy in Camberwell in the late 80’s, Stereolab have released at least twenty, exemplary, long-form examples of airy, other-worldly pop music. Some of it, like ‘Ping Pong’ and ‘French Disko’ sounded like hit material. Others didn’t quite frankly, like the 18 minute ‘Refractions In The Plastic Pulse’ or the succinctly but precisely titled ‘John Cage Bubblegum’. Yet almost all of it, however odd, is superb. No-one else can really pull off the combination of drone-rock, lounge music and pure pop like Stereolab. If you need further convincing, try 2001’s Sound Dust for size. It’s a career high, one of the very best records of this young millennium and each ‘lab record since has faced the daunting task of topping it or even matching it.

Stepping up to the plate this summer is Chemical Chords, which has already been well received among the critics, and one hopes this reception translates into sales. This is their brightest, poppiest and, let’s not be coy, grooviest record yet. “We wanted it to be an upbeat record, so it’s good if it makes you feel like dancing. Then the aim is achieved,” says singer Laetitia, “It may not sound like it now, but there was the idea of Motown rhythms which of course is pure pop, pure dance pop.” This is certainly in evidence on songs like ‘Three Women’ and ‘Neon Beanbag’. Also in evidence is Stereolab’s interest in all things scientific. There’s a track here called ‘Pop Molecule (Molecular Pop)’. What provoked this long-time obsession? Laetitia explains: “I don’t know, maybe Tim is attracted to that. A kind of futuristic idea, a hopeful idea of the future where science maybe comes into play and solves a lot of our problems. Within the music there’s also a lot of spirit. It’s not as materialist as it may sound. Within those musical molecules, those chemical chords I think there’s also a spiritual dimension, you know, that is not necessarily stated, but it’s there between the chords.”

One of the album’s standouts is the childlike ‘Daisy Click Clack’, a track which might stand a chance of climbing the charts, if someone is astute enough to have the characters from In The Night Garden fronting it. This is no criticism, but Laetitia is defensive: “That’s the sunniest of the tracks on this record. Personally, I like it. Tim [Stereolab’s other founding member and all-round boffin] wasn’t so sure about it. He thought it was maybe a bit over the top. I was like ‘if you think that don’t put it on the record’, but it still made it on the record. There were 16 others that didn’t.” And what will happen to those? “Hopefully they will come out at some point on a proper LP with a proper release and the attention it deserves. Because it’s really a two-parter, this record. We did record 31 tracks for it. It’s like this is the day side and the other batch will be the night side. They can’t all fit on one record but it couldn’t have been a sort of double album because really that’s way too heavy, way too much information to carry within one same box, so I think it’s best to separate them. The only danger is that the other batch gets kind of ignored because you only get one shot every two years in this business.” So the Ash route of whacking single tracks up on their website is not for Stereolab. “I guess we still think in terms of albums. We’re so conditioned to that ,I mean how can we not think in terms of albums? Sometimes you buy an LP and you’re not ready for it and it sort of goes over your head a little bit. It’s only a year later you totally get that record. I’m sure that’s happened to all of us who are of a certain age, heh heh. How can it always be immediate, the impact a song has on you?”

Of course, one of Stereolab’s strengths has always been the attention they have always paid to records as artifacts. For every major release LP or single there are hoards of obscure split singles, or one-off single releases on coloured vinyl. This should come as no surprise as the band are noted record collectors. Perhaps they are a dying breed in the age of mp3s and ringtones. Laetitia laments the lost art of record hunting, “It’s a pity but what can be done? You just have to accept that people aren’t buying records like they used to. Ways of getting to music have changed. I guess we just have to accept that.” Some of our readers may remember Laetitia and Tim’s appearance on The Adam and Joe Show, where they were required to justify the stranger inclusions in their universe-sized record collection. There were vinyl records which played in reverse from the centre to the rim, recordings of motor car exhausts and the slightly less outré Beach Boys Christmas album.

Are there any obscure records which have eluded Stereolab’s vast record collection? It turns out Laetitia’s bandmate and ex-beau was the hoarder in that particular relationship: “You’d have to ask Tim that! Cause he’s the record-acquirer. I’m sure there are things… I know there was a thing in France in the 70’s when it was at the end of the night, you know around 1 o’clock, when programmes had ended on Channel 2. They would have a sort of little cartoon that was very poetic. It was of a man wearing a big coat that sort of flies up in the air, and I think it was Hofer de Roubaix that did the soundtrack to it and it was very very pretty. I don’t think Tim ever managed to track that down.”

Apart from several examples of fine indie pop, Laetitia and Tim have also managed to produce a child together. One wonders what sort of music a child of this pair grows up to like. “He likes reggae” asserts the mother who knows best, “and he’s really into Daft Punk.” How does he feel about Stereolab’s out-there output? “He’s actually really proud! He doesn’t tell us so, but we hear that through others.” Quite rightly so. Back in 1999, on an LP called Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night, Stereolab’s famous interest in Marxist theory met the personal on the track ‘People Do It All The Time’, the singer urging her child to “grow… reviving old ideas that will carry”. It was a gentle touch, displaying a warmth one doesn’t always associate with the world of dialectical materialism. I ask Laetitia if she actually gets involved in praxis. Do Stereolab vote? Have they ever been involved in a political party? Do they protest? Laetitia gathers her thoughts: “No not really. I would like to be more politically active but somehow I’m doing other things. I’m doing music and a school of shiatsu at the moment and it’s strange that I’m not in a political party… But maybe it’s because I feel it would be a bit pointless at this stage because I think there’s not enough people who want, and I include myself in this, who really want profoundly to change society. To radically change society, that is, because I think society is changing every day. It’s just shifting you know? But what I think is really important at this stage is for consciousness to stay as wide as possible. For people to be aware. When you think of that huge blurb of people, that mass, the consumer mass… I mean I see that last night 20 million people watched this horrifically stupid show en masse but I thought ‘I don’t meet these people, where are they? Who are they? Do they really have an influence?’ The whole of the media is catering for these people, whom it completely despises. But I think people are cleverer than that or can be anyway. Maybe they’re watching it but totally not buying it at all. Aware that it’s for 15 year olds or 12 year olds who are attracted to this kind of…pap. I’d say it’s important to remain critical, aware and conscious.”

Warming to this idea, we discuss the state of television, radio and the music press in general. I came across Stereolab via the brilliant and much-missed ITV Chart Show one Saturday morning in 1994, when I caught the video to ‘Ping Pong’ on the indie chart. Does Laetitia think it’s a pity that quirky-pop on TV has been relegated to digital music TV stations? It seems I’ve touched on a particular bugbear, and have prompted something of a rant. “Oh! Yeah, listen, you know that sucks! I mean really this thing where the media is really catering for that nondescript blurb in the middle I mean what’s wrong with having an hour a week of some indie news you know? Bloody hell! Like how come we’re not represented at all? There used to be John Peel and he’s gone and there’s no-one to replace him! And that really pushes bands like us into the ground.”

It’s difficult to disagree with that. But there is one beacon of hope: “I was watching [BBC’s] The Culture Show and it’s great!. I only saw it once last week and it’s really great. They had… whatsisface…Primal Scream. They played a song at the beginning and one at the end. I mean I don’t really like Primal Scream. My expectations were really low…” Probably just as well given their current incarnation… “But I was thinking ‘oh there’s a song there! Wow! It’s rocking! Alright!” Just when I think the lady is going quite bonkers she settles into her theme again. “So here you can hope to see a bit of music and hear it but it’s…too few and far between. On French TV there’s a channel called ARTE. It’s part French owned, but mostly German and basically you end up only watching ARTE. I know I did. And there’s a programme called Tracks and it’s kind of alternative culture and music. But you know it goes a lot to the US, hip hop or New Zealand in the tribes you know? It’s a bit out there. But you can hope to see a little reportage on Peaches for example.”

Laetitia adds, “You know there was a lot of people who thought we’d split up! And we were saying ‘no actually we’ve been making records all this time!’” Let it be known. It remains a joy to have them around.

Illustration by Sarah Jane Comerford