Tomato Ketchup and Stereolab!

Who is the band that mixes Neu!, Faust and Classic Krautrock with classic good 60's Pop music? Give up! It's a band called Stereolab. Stereolab either legitimized forms of music that were on the fringe of rock, or brought attention to strands of pop music -- Bossa-Nova, lounge-pop, movie soundtracks -- that were traditionally banished from the rock lineage. The group's trademark sound -- a droning, hypnotic rhythm track overlaid with melodic, mesmerizing singsong vocals, often sung in French and often promoting revolutionary, Marxist politics -- was deceptively simple, providing the basis for a wide array of stylistic experiments over the course of their prolific career. Throughout it all, Stereolab relied heavily on forgotten methods of recording, whether it was analog synthesizers and electronics or a fondness for hi-fi test records, without ever sinking to the level of kitsch.(AM)

I first heard Stereolab on my way home from my community college. You may laugh, but NPR did a feature on them. It was something I did not expect. They talked about them as a band who's mix of so many different styles that anyone should listen to them. It was music that intrigued me because they did not mix one or two different genres, but like a dozen. It was music that sounded fun and quite new to my ears back in 1993. I knew very little, but I wanted to hear more. I wrote them down and put them on my list of things to find at the record stores.



The group certainly hasn't backed away from pop melodies on Emperor Tomato Ketchup, but just as their hooks are becoming catchier, they bring in more avant-garde and experimental influences, as well. Consequently, the album is Stereolab's most complex, multi-layered record. It lacks the raw, amateurish textures of their early singles, but the music is far more ambitious, melding electronic drones and singsong melodies with string sections, slight hip-hop and dub influences, and scores of interweaving counter melodies. Even when Stereolab appears to be creating a one-chord trance, there is a lot going on beneath the surface. Furthermore, the group's love for easy listening and pop melodies means that the music never feels cold or inaccessible.

To me the music was totally new and fresh. I never heard this type of music before in my life. I decided to buy some of their back catalog. It was quite an effort to find their music. It was easy to find their regular albums, but it was hard to find their singles and EP's. They put so much out between four albums at the time that it was next to impossible to catch up. There music was full of heavy synths and wonderful odd electronic sounds. It made me think that this could be done a whole new way. The stuff I heard on NPR was what made me think they were really ahead of their time. If you asked me to take stock of listening to this any earlier in my life I would have quickly dismissed it as crap. This music is better then anything I heard at the time.



I chose Emperor Tomato Ketchup because this was the one that made me finally realize how great they really were. The music on this album is full of great sounds and hooks, and wonderful and lush female vocals by Mary Hansen and Laetitia Sadier. Even better was the use of French in some of the songs. It made it a whole new sound to me. This was becoming a musical obsession to me and every chance I got I really wanted to hear the new music. Like some artists, I would go to the store the day the music was released. Stereolab was one of those bands. Each album made a different leap into the unknown and that unknown was very good stuff. If you like your pop music keyboard heavy and full of these lush vocals you should check out Stereolab. This is a great place to start and a really fine album. Listen and enjoy!!