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

sweet little thing i discovered recently: you can hear a tape regeneration/echo of Mary singing her part on "Fuses" before she actually comes in, it's really low in the mix around 1:39

My all-time favourite LP bar none. If you twist my arm, I will pick Caleidoscopic Gaze. But no weak links here.

I managed to write a few words about the record here:
http://www.stereolab.co.uk/forum/stereolab/topic/6809/flat/

NME and Pitchfork OTM re: this one.

woof

it's one thing not to like the band, but to hate this album while loving previous Stereolab albums has never made much sense.

"puncture in the radax permutation" gets my vote, but it's a much better album than i realized at the time. didn't realize how badly i'd misjudged it till last year's stereolab poll.

in terms of critical reception, i suppose cobra and phases fell victim to the groop's true passions. emperor was a wide-ranging pop record that still retained some of the psycho-electric charge of their early, "grunge era" material, while dots and loops showcased a deepening fascination with then-fashionable electronica (that word). cobra & phases seemed not only to step deliberately out of sync with that, it basically abandoned all interest in the present moment. here, stereolab finally commit fully to the midcentury easy-listening sounds they'd previously mined & repurposed. this was still the late 90s, after all, a period of much edge & avanting...

Cobra and Phases feels out of time in the best way, while ETK and especially D&L are very much wedded to the time they were released... imo it's got the most delicious sounds and mixing on any of the post-MAQ records

How is Pitchfork "OTM" on this one when the review completely lacks content?

I'll go with "The Spiracles."

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.

OP HOP

But then again this album flows together really nicely

this too is my favorite album by the groop, they really go full on ez vibes here. o'rourke and mcentire killing it with the smooth space age bachelor(ette) sounds.

it's cool how the tracklists just alternates back and forth from o'rourke track to mcentire track.

can't pick one here, i guess my favorites are
fuses,
people do it all the time,
italian shoes continuum,
infinity girl,
come and play

i also love when they get super chilled out like on "the sphericles" and "velvet water"

I like Spiracles because it sounds like a High Llamas song.

yeah it has a bit of an "ambient brian wilson" thing going on

I hope you got 200$+ for it. I think there's only 6,000. I looked it up bc I wanted to hear the full Blue Milk but it's ridiculously expensive on discogs

― flappy bird, Thursday, March 23, 2017 10:56 AM

Nah, this was way back only a couple years after it came (before Mary even died, iirc). I probably got $20-30 at best.

All these songs sound the same!

I'm joking guys I love Stereolab. Hard to decide today I'm going for Op Hop but Blips, Drips is a second close.

Oh god listening to this one right now and fuses and come and play are excellent as well.

Busta Rhymes sampling "Come and Play in the Milky Night" was an interesting choice

*should say Jay Dee sampled it

All these songs sound the same

It's no Sound Dust (their best, IMO) and people rush to defend it 'cos it got bricked by NME, but I don't agree with you, Alex. You could make the "Stereolab on autopilot" argument about most of their albums post-ETK, but it's not really valid unless you're not listening to the albums closely. I don't really think they hit autopilot until they got to Fab Four Suture, which is my least favorite Stereolab album, and I don't really find the two that came after too interesting either.

:)

Probably too long, but has some of my favorite stuff by them: Free Design, Blue Milk, Come and Play in the Milky Night. Never got the pfork hate on this (or any later era Stereolab), tho I do remember thinking that review was funny

Less autopilot, more assembly line. That's according to Latetia's RBMA interview.

This album was a huge deal for me at the time. I was 13 years old and Amazon was offering free promotional downloads of "The Free Design" and "Op Hop Detonation." I DL'd those two tracks with the 56k dial-up connection and played that shit to death, especially "The Free Design." Bought the album as soon as it came out in fall of 99 and by summer I had acquired most 'lab albums and was fiending for Japanese imports of Krautrock CDs (all you could really get domestically at the time was a few Can albums). Formative, to say the least.

In hindsight, Cobra feels like their grandest statement to me. Non-stop ear candy (electric harpsichord, clavinet, vibes, and marimbas for days) and gorgeous melodies ("Come And Play..." and the mixolydian glow of "Velvet Water" and "Blue Milk" come to mind in particular). 75 minutes of this is a whole lot to take in, and I see how it might be off-putting for someone with an aversion to the sonic palette of 70s library music. I think it could have been even better if a couple of the weaker tracks were swapped with the two best "Free Design" b-sides, "With Friends Like These" and "Escape Pod (From the World of Medical Observations)." Also anyone who digs Cobra should not sleep on First of the Microbe Hunters, which was unfairly neglected in the wake of Cobra getting fucked over by critics.

So I'm voting for "The Free Design," which may or may not be the best song on the album, but has surely had the greatest impact on me personally. Also gotta love that ridiculous "Dancing Queen" trumpet quote in the outro - surely Jim O'Rourke's idea, right?

For me the sound of this album is a little too smoothed out. It's too slick. I think if anything they got a little too "professional" sounding at this stage, like there are a number of points where it's all tastefully arranged trumpets and ridiculously proficient bass playing. My favorite stuff by them always had a looser edge. Even when they tightened things up on stuff like "Ping Pong" there was still a lot of air in there. The production on Cobra feels really suffocating.

no it's good that's it's smooth and slick

Yeah.

How can you hate on tasteful horn arrangements and ridiculously proficient bass playing?

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

I think it's O'Hagan TBH.

Could be, but O'Rourke has gone on record calling Dancing Queen one of his favorite songs:
http://stevestate.blogspot.com/2006/07/visiting-this-planet.html

flappy bird, I'm glad you found that live collection, cool to see it still has some life. It was put together over 15 years ago by Stereolab forum members

this is a sweet cover version by Mifune

https://open.spotify.com/track/1fX95f0Gm8L2Q29Rcr8XpU

I think it's definitely O'Rourke - he recorded the track, arranged the horns, and yeah Dancing Queen is one of his favorite songs ever.

O'hagan did the brass arrangements, not O'rourke, fwiw

maybe I misread something

That's how I'm reading it, but I looked into the Abba connection and can't find anything suggestion O'Hagan is a fan, whereas O'Rourke seems to talk about "Dancing Queen" in quite a few places.

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"

The reissue version seems to have better separation between the instruments. I think this is one of the most striking qualities on these, they sound much more like a band playing individual parts rather than a wall of sound.

I am a little disappointed that the liner notes suggest that the title should be "Italian Shoes/Continuum" rather than "Italian Shoes Continuum".

Italian Shoes Continuum is almost too much as a title - like something a Stereolab Title Generator would come up with

it's a perfect title for a perfect song

had no idea the full length Blue Milk had extra shit in the beginning. Completely blown away

How can you hate on tasteful horn arrangements and ridiculously proficient bass playing?

― afriendlypioneer, Friday, March 24, 2017 10:49 AM (two years ago)

haha yeah is anyone ever like man this band is great just listen to that shitty bass playing

Nirvana was very popular

But seriously, I was listening to this the other day, and it occurred to me how odd it is that this album was a bit of a disappointment, but if an unknown band came out of the blue with Cobra and Phases, they'd be hailed as insane geniuses.

say what??! novoselic was a great bassist

Lol, agree to disagree. I suppose he did an ok Kim Deal impersonation.

Time has indeed been kind to Cobra and Phases. it was the first Lab album that I picked up on release, having consumed their prior output, starting with Refried Ectoplasm & working forward & back, but hung up on Dots & Loops as everyone was at the time, to my recollection. When Cobra came out it seemed to me a pretty pale retread of Dots, but I feel glad to be very much mistaken. Over the years it revealed itself, as most of their albums have tended to, as its own thing.

But seriously, I was listening to this the other day, and it occurred to me how odd it is that this album was a bit of a disappointment, but if an unknown band came out of the blue with Cobra and Phases, they'd be hailed as insane geniuses.

― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles)

THANK YOU!

THEY would be, not YOU

this is by far their worst album.

Their worst? They put out a whole lot of stuff. I don't think anything album after Mary passed really quite measures up.

subjective obv, but I don't think the over-reliance on the influence/input of Sean O'Hagen & John McEntyre was the best thing for their sound. I just find this album really washy and lacking in definition.

if that seems overly harsh, Stereolab are basically the closest thing I have to a 'favorite band,' so it is really a measure of levels of love.

It's not particularly focused, and probably too long, but it has so many excellent songs and ideas going on, it's hard for me to dislike it. Later records like Margerine Eclipse and Chemical Chords have more coherent concepts, but also too many tracks that are just ok and don't do much.

I should probably revisit it. Sound-dust, Margerine Eclipse, Chemical Chords & Not Music have many terrific high points among them, though I agree that their consistency/quality control is not up to the standards of their 90s output. It's sad to think that at least some of that probably had to do with Mary Hansen's absence.

Peng! - Dots & Loops is such phenomenal run of albums, it's easy to see how anything short of those high water marks could be taken as a let-down by comparison.

The Oscillations from the Anti-Sun comp is what I return to most w/r/t Stereolab's post-Dots & Loops material. It is every bit on par with the other two Switched On comps imo.

Oscillations also doesn't have any material post Sound-Dust.

I definitely think losing Mary had a huge impact on the quality of their recordings during the 2000s. I'd also say an under discussed change was losing Morgane Lhote on keyboards. Her playing was in a sweet spot where she was skillful enough to manage more complex songs without being overly technical and noodly, and she often added a funky syncopation to the mix.

On some days I feel like Sound-Dust and Margerine are their two finest records. Relentlessly beautiful in very different ways

Margarine Eclipse is one of their best, and the new remaster is the most essential of the recent reissues, by quite a margin.

Margerine Eclipse is their best 2000s lp imo. 'Vonal Declosion' is a top-10 Stereolab track for me.

xxp - otm re: Morgane Lhote. I always wondered how much of a contribution Andy Ramsay made to the composition and arrangements as well - was she another undersung part of The Groop?

I've tried to love this.

Do you not have love in your cold heart

*looks for Jake*

'Vonal Declosion' is a top-10 Stereolab track for me.

otm

^^^

Margerine Eclipse has a handful of tracks I really love, and a bunch more that bore me

I have always thought this one and Sound-Dust are really underrated; not least of all for the very David Axelrod-reminiscent string arrangements throughout. The first section of 'Emergency Kisses' springs to mind immediately as a very much perfect musical moment in that regard.

i think the keyboards, or the keyboard+production combo, are pretty important on cobra phases. i've been thinking for a couple days about how to describe it and it's not right but it occurred to me that dylan's 'wild, thin mercury sound' gets in the right ballpark

In the liner notes, Tim makes special mention of the Farfisa electric harpsichord, which they began using a lot starting with this album.

Cobra is far from their worst. Basically post Margerine Eclipse they ran out of gas. Chemical Chords sounds like demos, and Not Music is an absolutely unceremonious last album.

Chemical Chords has a beguiling sweetness, girl group bounce, post-'60s on the shoreline sunsets, love heightening just as its potential recedes, triumphal sadness. Such gushing probably points to ultimately personal associations; and as we've discussed elsewhere, Sadier hated making it... but I love it dearly. In retrospect, with the brevity of its songs, it seems to be accelerating toward a conclusion. (This makes Not Music rather anticlimactic, I'd agree, though there are some dandy bits on it too). 2008 was no longer Stereolab's moment, and so their backward gazes seem more bittersweet.

Cobra was also my first "new" 'Lab album and holds a special place for me as the sole album I ever bought at a midnight release-day sale. I hope I still have the little promo poster I got with the groop lying down in a circle. The album seems a clear candidate for their most ambitious, somewhere between its ornamentation and its length; it's not quite as endlessly relistenable as Dots & Loops but it's pretty neat.

I am a little disappointed that the liner notes suggest that the title should be "Italian Shoes/Continuum" rather than "Italian Shoes Continuum".

― with hidden noise, Thursday, September 19, 2019 10:06 PM (five months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Italian Shoes Continuum is almost too much as a title - like something a Stereolab Title Generator would come up with

― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, September 19, 2019 11:29 PM (five months ago) bookmarkflaglink

actually this really helps me bc italian shoes is the first downer for me on the album and to know that i should hear this as one fused song rather than two (since i usually don't pay attention to the track breaks) gives me some motivation to try to see the value in italian shoes

with the slash it's more like, a strange occurrence that must be explained, how the shoes lead to the far more abstract and compelling phenomenon of a continuum

the spiracles also pretty draggy