Since 1990, the British-French combo Stereolab have been making unusual and beautiful music together. Beginning with the Super 45 single in 1990, Stereolab has carved out an expanding niche in the modern-rock market. Their most recent release is Sound-Dust, and their current North American tour is in support of that album.
It's very difficult to describe the Stereolab sound. While unique, it incorporates many familiar styles, ranging from punk to to hip-hop to electronica to Sonic-Youth influenced barrages of pure noise. Currently they are a six-peice lineup (their members fluctuate slightly on each release). This lineup includes Tim Gane (guitar, vox organ), Laetitia Sadier (vocals, tambourine, Korg synth), Mary Hansen (vocals, guitar, tambourine), Morgane Lhote (farfisa), Andy Ramsay (percussion), and Simon Johns (bass). This lineup definitely clicks, as was evident during their two hour set at Ft. Worth's Ridglea Theater last night.
It was a night filled with old favorites that was designed to please long-time fans, and this was evident from the beginning when Stereolab opened their set with the crowd-pleasing "Percolator" from the brilliant Emperor Tomato Ketchup LP. Widely hailed as Stereolab's finest and most complicated work, ETK was, before last night, largely impossible to imagine live. However, Stereolab is a technical band, and they pulled off wonderfully dizzy versions of songs like "Spark Plug" and "The Noise of Carpet". Mary Hansen and Laetitia Sadier each had mixerboards and synths onstage, and they looped both their vocals and sounds in real-time while the boys filled the background with a sonic blast rarely accomplished by lesser bands.
Throughout the night, many songs from ETK were featured, as well as many different instrumentations of familiar songs. Laetitia rotated between a tambourine, her synth, and guitar while Mary played with a mixerboard and wielded a trombone for most of the show. These variations gave new depth to older favorites like "Tone Burst" and "Jenny Ondioline", which are featured on the Elecktra release Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements. Tim Gane showed his playing chops by simply being able to pull off the usually studio-looped guitar parts live. The consistency and energy he brings to Stereolab's lineup is generally taken for granted by most critics, however, Gane managed to brilliantly reproduce (and in most cases, outdo) his studio work. Simon Johns banged away on his bass guitar and managed to flesh out a much bigger sound outside the studio. Morgane Lhote also did his part by contributing the "signature" Stereolab sound: a sonic-psychotic organ, screaming and writhing in the background.
When Stereolab reached deep into the bowels of their archives and pulled out favorites such as "French Disko", "Refractions in the Plastic Pulse", and "SurrealChemist" from their first full length album peng!, the crowd responded enthusiastically. Truly this was a show of appreciation for a band that, for most of it's ten-plus year career, has existed on the fringes of mainstream modern rock.
This was truly a superb show, one in which the band was obviously comfortable with the venue, the crowd, and the material. Their older songs played very well with the twenty-something crowd, and each song was performed very tightly. The newer material seemed a bit weak, but I attribute that to the difficulty of reproducing their studio work in a live venue. The newer songs will obviously progress each time they are played, and will eventually be as pleasing as the older favorites showcased during their set.
In conclusion, I'd say this was sixteen dollars well spent, and I'd gladly pop the bucks to see Stereolab in concert in the future. 4-1/2 out of 5 stars.
If you're interested in learning more about Stereolab, check out the following links:
Stereolab Official Site
Great fan site at Koly.com
Elektra Records Stereolab Site