Review by MarkR
3½ stars out of 4
Like the French? How about socialists? If you don’t own a Stereolab record
yet, it’s not for the band’s lack of effort. COBRA AND PHASES GROUP PLAY
VOLTAGE IN THE MILKY NIGHT marks Stereolab’s tenth album in seven years
for Elektra, British post-rock indie Too Pure, the band’s own Duophonic
Super 45 imprimatur and various other labels (I won’t even get into
singles and EPs). That’s way too much music for any sane person to wade
through; luckily, their new 75-minute album neatly encapsulates and
compresses the different threads of music the ‘Lab have been weaving thus
far.
A prolific ensemble, Stereolab are not one whose major releases stray
erratically from one to the next -- except following the edgy pop of their
debut, 1992’s PENG!, which original members Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier
seemingly outgrew as they made it. Hence, COBRA AND PHASES won’t confuse
listeners captivated by the last two albums, ‘96’s breakthrough EMPEROR
TOMATO KETCHUP and its ultra-accessible follow-up, DOTS AND LOOPS (not
forgetting, of course, last year’s Drag City release ALUMINUM TUNES:
SWITCHED ON, Vol. 3, a collection of B-sides and rarities.)
But where KETCHUP consolidated the band’s individual contributions into
a sound altogether funkier and more coherent than the sometimes kitschy
impressions left by earlier works -- Dots and Loops taking this formula
to new heights of listenability -- the new album moves on to further explore
the themes and ideas those and previous, more obscure records asserted
without regard for commercialism. It also finds Chicago avant-rock further
co-opting the Stereolab sound, with Tortoise major domo John McEntire
pushing Gane and Sadier’s compositions deeper into the anti-noodling
prog frontier than he did on the previous two Elektra albums.
Opener “Fuses,” a jazzy skronk illuminated by the somnolent scatting of
Sadier and Mary Hansen, stutters into shape chasing McEntire’s traps.
McEntire’s drumming commenced the last Tortoise disc in similar fashion,
and his fingerprints coat every inch of this album. Everyone’s favorite
French Marxist, Sadier still coos and purrs her mini-manifestos on
shedding the bonds of the societal vassalage and social determinism
through service to a higher, if vague, humanistic purpose; “Humble biped
you’ve come undone,” she sings in “Puncture in the Rada
Permutation,” a song in which the electronic keyboardist actually argues
against technology in the name of personal liberation. And “Caleidoscopic
Gaze” rallies a cry for the cause of nudism, unless I’m reading a
second-language metaphor too literally.
But Stereolab’s lyrics argue against complacency at the same time their
music lulls you into it. People don’t listen to Stereolab for the words,
however -- good thing considering a larger portion of this album’s are
sung in French than usual. Adding to the challenge, every exercise in
pop exuberance (“People Do It All the Time,” “Infinity Girl,”
“Op Hop Detonation”) comes hidden amongst more challenging, drone-based
fare often sans the immediate, percolating rhythms of recent releases.
Cobra and Phases’ thematic center, “Velvet Water” and “Blue
Milk” are songs of a piece, sung entirely in French, in staid rhythms
that aren’t allowed vent until briefly at the end of the latter. It’s
as if Stereolab, one of the most successful bands existing outside
music-industry machinery, made their concessions to pop music structure
and form and now ask that listeners follow them headlong into the milky
night of sound, a reasonable request based on this record.
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