Rounding The Sharpness

Stereolab “Metronomic Underground / John Cage Bubblegum (Peel session)” – Inspired mainly by seeing the tracklisting for their forthcoming “hits” anthology (which is pretty decent as an introduction to the Groop in spite of inexplicably omitting some key singles such as “Lo Boob Oscillator,” “The Noise of Carpet,” “The Free Design,” and “Captain Easychord”) on Stereogum last week, I’ve spent a majority of my listening time over this past weekend revisiting the Stereolab catalog, focusing mainly on their peak period from about 1993 on through 1996. It’s been an interesting thing, because perhaps more so than any other top-drawer indie act of the 90s, none is more hopelessly out of sync with the indie music of this decade than Stereolab. Whereas even the artiest of 00s acts place a premium on emotion, mood, or visceral rush, Stereolab were almost entirely cerebral, choosing instead to create music that meditated on philosophy, criticism, art, and economics within sonic structures that were like the pop manifestations of epiphanies and extended trains of thought. We have music for all sorts of things, but Stereolab were essentially exploring a largely unknown territory of pop compositions that expressed keen intellectual interest and fascination with obscure reference points from art, music, and academia.

It’s hard to imagine that it’s been so long already, but this year marks the tenth anniversary of the band’s masterpiece Emperor Tomato Ketchup. Nearly every track on the record is a stone classic, most especially the opening epic “Metronomic Underground,” which is arguably the single best song in the Stereolab discography. Built on a foundation of a genuinely funky (though characteristically asexual) bass groove, the track’s gradual layering of musical elements and graceful tangents seems to imply both a sense of architectural space and the gradual arc of a rational argument. This remarkable Peel session recording moves at a slightly brisker tempo than the original album version, and the rawness of the production allows for more bite in the keyboard tones, resulting in a more physical and aggressive take on the composition. As the song reaches its climax in its seventh minute, the leads dissolve into a brilliant mess of sputtering electronic noises before transitioning into a particularly raucous rendition of “John Cage Bubblegum” from the Refried Ectoplasm compilation. The genius of Stereolab’s best work is very well represented in this recording, mainly in the way that they were able to approach their brainy, somewhat austere subject matter with the same sort of passion that Prince would reserve for sexuality, or Metallica would embrace in articulating rage. Though the band is still capable of writing strong material here and there, that sort of spark and energy is largely missing from their work following Emperor Tomato Ketchup, meaning that even the catchiest tunes from Dots and Loops onward tend to seem less dynamic in comparison. (Click here to pre-order Serene Velocity from Rhino, and here to buy Emperor Tomato Ketchup from Insound.)