Neu Wave

So there I was in Manchester University off to see Monster Magnet* and during a quick toilet break before the main act I passed the door of the other venue there. The sound I heard stopped me in my tracks. It was heavy, fast, trancey and really, really LOUD; Can amphetamine jamming with VU, Neu! and Silver Apples.

I asked the ticket taking dude who was playing and he said Stereolab. I reassessed my view of the fey indie no-hopers I’d previously written off** as not being worth a dog fart in a hurricane.

I like to think the snippet I heard was this track, my favourite Stereolab cut, no windy hound this:

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Over the years I’ve scraped together a fair old, but not exhaustive Stereolab collection, here’s a groovy little number on clear vinyl, The Groop Played “Space Age Batchelor Pad Music”^. It’s a 1993 mini-LP that the band put together at a recording session to make a 7″ single. It’s the very definition of a curate’s egg.

The track names refer to genres of music that the band would like to find in a record shop. As a devotee of Ambient Flamenco I’m all in for that concept.

Space Age Bachelor Pad Music eases into being with the soothing tones of ‘Avant Garde M.O.R’. It is the gentlest of starts and I just adore how Laetitia Sadier and Mary Hansen’s voices harmonize here, the aural equivalent of sliding into a warm foamy bath. Hell, there’s even an unhurried marimba break towards the end^^.

The title track(-ish) ‘Space Age Bachelor Pad Music (Mellow)’ is two minutes of ho-hum vamping on a Farsifa organ riff. Hmm; the similarly named ‘Space Age Bachelor Pad Music (Foamy)’ is less exciting still. The deliriously honest reissue sleeve notes say of the next track ‘The Groop Play Chord X’:

A hastily written song that wouldn’t have seen the light of day if we hadn’t been in such a bind

Then we’re lifted by the futuristic easy listening stylings of ‘Ronco Symphony’, bringing a very mixed side to an end.

Then we’re up and running through an endless loop of European road tunnels on ‘We’re Not Adult Orientated’, my original six minutes of bliss where everything coalesces and accelerates. It is exactly what I imagine space drugs taste like. I do not write to waste my time, quite, but I can listen to this on a continuous loop.

Je ne
Je n'écris pas
Non je n'écris pas
Pour perdre mon temps
On n'écrit pas
Je perds mon temps

I really like ‘U.H.F – MFP’ which is when the band sound most purely like themselves here, sublime voices and strumming with a great guitar coda really summon up the ambience of every French film you aren’t cool enough to have seen^*.

Then we’re back for a blast through ‘We’re Not Adult Orientated (Neu Wave Live)’ which the liner notes say is pretty much how they sounded live, given that its a single mic recording of them smashing it out in the studio. It is bloody fast too.

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In my orbital space age bachelor pad I’ll probably only need this EP and my Pan Am The Sound of 70’s album to enrapture all the zero-g chicks I could possibly want.

Although this is essentially a bit of a flawed odds-n-sods affair, the bits where Stereolab get to pulse and flow are truly great, mixing that propulsion with an ineffable coolness when they really hit their stride. To hear all this goodness in a more consistent long-form format grab yourself Mars Audiac Quintet or, the thrillingly titled, Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements. Trust me, I’m a médecin.

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My copy of Space Age Bachelor Pad Music is part of Stereolab’s recent reissue campaign. It’s a really good pressing on clear vinyl with fancy liner notes.

I really love the way the cover is modelled on all manner of stereo testing and library music LPs, even to the point of including the mounted figure from Vanguard Records on the cover. It’s very hip to be unhip.

1203 Down.

*I think, I may have got the university and band completely wrong and I have no interest in looking it up and proving myself wrong, this is my truth.

**without ever hearing a note of their music, of course. I’m nothing if not open-minded and non-judgmental.

^or Space Age Bachelor Pad Music as most people call it.

^^nothing worse than a hurried marimba break, obvs.

^*potentially named ‘Boulangerie Blanc’ or ‘Le Ennui De Chou-fleur’.