Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night - Stereolab

Fab Four Suture may be Stereolab on autopilot but it still has the magic-eye seeing puzzle like "Kyberneticka Babicka", "Interlock" and "Excursions Into Oh-A-Oh" which is one of the few latter day Stereolab tracks to actually rock.

"Exercusions Into Oh-A-Oh" is definitely the highlight.

^ totally agree. Also happy to see you're into Sound Dust, very underrated abum

So, I've decided to give this a quick re-listen to see if I've missed anything, and nope, it's exactly the same as I remember it being, overly slick and quite samey from top to bottom and it's failing to excite me in the way that Mars Audiac Quintet or Emperor Tomato Ketchup do... although the breakdown on 'Italian Shoes Continuum' is quite nice.

Anyway, voting for 'Puncture in the Radax Permutation', which strikes me as being the painfully obvious highlight.

Didn´t know about this extended version of Blue Milk.

Turrican OTM

xp whoa thanks for finding that! yeah extended Blue Milk is not on youtube afaik, and vinyl copies with it are v expensive

It's a shame that one has to listen for roughly about 8 and a half minutes before 'Blue Milk' generates any excitement.

I sold this album and Dots and Loops a while ago. I ripped them first, and the 3 songs mentioned by Ross at the top of the thread are all in my library, but I can't remember how any of them go.

It's a shame because I had the chance to see Stereolab around this time and passed it up because I wasn't a fan of this period but I never saw them again. In fact I only saw them once around ETK time.

Just realised I've never even heard Margerine Eclipse or Fab Four Suture (didn't even know the latter existed!). I will rectify that at some point.

Margerine Eclipse is the only Stereolab album that's managed to choke me up a little... "Feel and Triple"

Maybe worth noting that there's a "Blaue Milch" on the Peter Thomas Warp Back to Earth compilation – I forget what the connection is between the two "Blue Milk" versions.

good god they released SO much

just checked out First of the Microbe Hunters the other day, whew. so good. "Outer Bongolia"!

First of the Microbe Hunters was actually the first Stereolab I bought, and then worked my way backwards. Was weird to then read about everyone seemed to prefer earlier material, because I loved all of the new stuff right away.

Also "Kyberneticka Babicka" is amazing. One of my favorite songs by them.

Yeah Microbe Hunters is almost as good as Cobra. "Household names" is a huge favorite of mine.

The last song is great too, can't remember what it's called.

"Retrograde Mirror Form." Beautiful outro.

i can't get over the chords in 'Fuses'

love this documentary from 2000, sweet pro-shot show with interview bits in-between

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbVk5aXheLM

Miss Modular
French Disko
Blips, Drips & Strips
Infinity Girl
Rainbow Conversation
Come and Play in the Milky Night
Escape Pod
Metronomic Underground
Des Étoiles Élétroniques
Analogue Rock
Blue Milk

wow, never seen this before, this was my favorite line up for live Stereolab

another new video uploaded from the Cobra and Phases tour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaFcEKARV64

1 ESCAPE POD
2 THE FREE DESIGN
3 AVANT GARDE MOR
4 ANALOGUE ROCK
5 BLUE MILK
6 THE SEEMING AND THE MEANING

Thaaaanks.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Hi Flappy bird, have to kindly disagree that Cobra sounds the best of the post MAQ records. It's always sounded dense and somewhat muddy to me, whereas Dots & Loops sounded more bright and expressive. My favourite production is on Sound Dust where it's much more open and widescreen.

― Carlotta's Portrait (Ross), Thursday, March 23, 2017 6:27 PM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i put Sound Dust on last week for the first time in a while- it was sitting in my 'to sell' bin -and it blew me away. it sounds very cinematic, almost like the score to Chinatown in places. i heard Cobra and Phases for the first time a little over a year ago and it took ~9 months for it to percolate and become something i was obsessed with... i'll do a Sound Dust poll soon, need to listen to it more...

this is the fastest 1999 show i've heard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unl99JRrLos

This fucking poll is still going!?

I can't tell any album apart from any other post Ketchup. Is this one significantly distinct?

much more of a band vibe than Dots & Loops, the pop songs are poppier and the experiments are bolder. it's very in your face compared to Dots & Loops imo.

I've always thought of this as their smoothest yet most experimental album, which I know isn't saying much. Nothing else in the catalogue sounds quite like it.

it's a record of extreme contrasts, "italian shoes continuum" or "fuses" probably being the best examples. i love the way laetitia and mary's voices are manipulated throughout the record. i think it rocks a lot harder than anything post-ETK.

Fully aware that I am a disgusting savage, my relationship with the groop went: was a huge fan starting with SABPM up til Dots & Loops; listened to that album twice; broke up with the 'lab and never looked back.

I can't be the only one.

Hey, everyone has their points where they become disenchanted with a favorite band.

With Stereolab, Cobra... was the last big BIG hurrah, honestly, though I kept tuning in to the very end. (Margarine Eclipse means a lot to me, but some of that may be down to it being a tribute to Mary.)

(The last big hurrah for me, I should say.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Flappy bird - Sound Dust poll sounds so good! There's almost a Danny Elfman like quality in the opening track, it's cinematic no doubt. I still contend this album is one of the few albums that sounds awe inspiring in snow. It's a beautiful record and sorely underrated in Stereolab's discography.

It's their best. :)

Nothing To Do With Me :)!

:-) right on

Originally, my span was "Jenny Ondioline" to "Dots and Loops", but recently bought a batch of CD albums to catch up.

Living with one-at-a-time-per-month, rather than splurge-out, just to give each one a decent run..

never heard this before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSojHcpxt5U

Whoa! I never noticed that Dancing Queen horn quote in The Free Design. Definitely O'Rourke

Op Hop Destination quotes There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (ceases to fail?), which itself might be a quote from When I'm Sixty-Four (which would make ironic sense thematically.)

The muted trumpet / guitar at 1:51.

love Op Hop! this was the first album Stereolab i ever heard, i remember seeing it at a Media Play in the line up of recently released CDs to preview. there was also "Olivia Tremor Control's Black Foliage" and Fantastic Plastic Machine's "Luxury" kind of a banner era for psychedelic keyboard pop w masterpieces of the pre-2K post Exotica Renaissance.

it has been a thrill to see that they have such a long and varied career and to keep discovering their music through the albums and EPs. the early noise rock stuff is really wonderful and shoegazey/droney in a way that the later more electro pop stuff isn't. it is cool to have both of these styles. i reall like what they get into later on. that album cover looks like one of the posters in the A Clockwork Orange milk bar and the music kind of sounds like that. it is kind of funny that the reference points started w 70s kraut and drone rock and they worked backwards to the more plastic and futuristic Wendy Carlos/Perry Kingsley/Esquivel/Bruce Haack/Moog stuff.

i saw them only once at the 40 Watt in Athens in 2008. Atlas Sound was opening (this was the first time i heard "Walkabout" and it instantly turned the room into Bouncy Moon Castle) and me and a friend got in backstage and ended up chatting with Laetetia and the band for a good 20-30 mins. she was super cool and just really loved talking about art and music and being out on tour. afterwards i was kind of amazed they took the time out to just converse w us but it was a really fun conversation and my friend was an artist/musician as well and we were just geeking out w them, the band was all in a great mood from just playing the show. the show itself was so amazing. this show was at the end of a tour so they were musically v tight. they were unexpectedly a really tight funk band continuously slaying on the dance floor. dancing along to this music is a totally different experience than listening to it in a car or whatever, and the live show really took me by surprise. so blessed to have been able to see them live <3

Noel - I'm not hearing the Smiths quote in Op Hop. What part of 'There is a Light...' sounds like that trumpet part?

I kinda hear it in the ending, but the last note of the phrase is noticeably different.

It's the strings that start @ around 2mins in TIALTNGO. The two five note phrases. The phrasing is slightly different but the notes are the same I think.

I've realised the immense, massive brilliance of it. Now own three copies of the CD and recently blew 18 dollars on the 7 inch of Free Design but now the 1972 vinyl reissue is sitting there in my local record shop at the price of two large bottles of gin. Are these reissues worth getting? Or hold off? Another thread said reissues were maybe coming. Anyone got one of these?

I've heard bad things about the 1972 versions, but have no idea when or if the new vinyl versions will see the light of day

Yeah, I've seen negative and positive comments about them but nothing too specific.

they sound OK to me, but the thing that sucks about this one in particular is that the original LP pressing has a much longer mix of Blue Milk on it.