What better way to celebrate the end of Brexit — sorry, the new UK-EU treaty — than by delving into a new album by Stereolab, the Anglo-French group of lounge-pop sophisticates.
And, as it turns out, what better way to capture a moment when people are starting to articulate their response to the rising tide of authoritarianism and intolerance and outright bloody war. One listen to this, and you have the encouragement to think again.
Ah, Stereolab.
In the 1990s, they offered a counterpoint to Britpop: Gauloises instead of bucket hats. Now, in a week where Robbie Williams announced a new album called ‘Britpop’, in some strange attempt to jump onto the supposed cool of those days even though the actual cool people from those days (Liam, Jarvis, Damon, Justine), have spent their entire lives distancing themselves from the term, in this week we have Stereolab return with their first album in fifteen years and thank the gods.
Following sporadic reunion tours over the past few years, and it shows that songwriting duo Lætitia Sadier and Tim Gane still have the chops, and the ambition, with 13 songs of ultra-sharp groovy modernism. But within that sound, which is by turns seductive, epic and dreamy, there is pure rage, and a thrilling articulation of that rage.
So while the 7-minute ‘Melodie is a Wound’ flows forward on the prettiest swooning pop groove, when you tune into Sadier’s vocal she’s singing, ‘their war economy is inviolable, violently suppresses all intelligence that conflicts with the stakes of those who drive it.’
Angels it ain’t.
Once you are wrapped inside this world Stereolab have created, it is clear that this is a revelatory album that puts the group at the very forefront of music this year. ‘Vermona F Transistor’ is exquisite electro-Krautrock which delivers lines like, ‘The jokers who deflect and devise a program/Intimate sovereignty, game changer filigree/We stand to attеntion to ordained narrations/That support disunion,’ while giving these garage band pay-offs.
Not that this album is purely a piece of insurrectionist pop... but it sure sounds like it. Electrified Teenybop! is a rushing sci-fi instrumental that delivers on the promise of the title. While the twisted carnival tune La Coeur et La Force is a gorgeous thing to have in your life and might not be a call to arms, although French-speakers might conclude differently.
Instant Holograms on Metal Film is the kind of album that works on two levels. Either elite-level seductive dinner party music for the casual listener aiming for sophistication, or as a revolutionary tract for those who listen a little deeper. Either is valid, though for those who are worried about the age we live in, the way to deal with it is to further in, to read, think, talk, analyse, and rediscover the power of the mind in an era where thoughtlessness is consider the key tenet of leadership and brutality an aspiration.
Stereolab are not just offering an alternative to the return of Britpop, they are offering an alternative to global apocalypse.
Instant Holograms on Metal Film by Stereolab is out on 23 May.
