[My Gang] Stereolab - Pause : Reco of the Week 12 Apr 11

Terça-feira 12 Abr 2011, 12h:26

Track: Pause
Artist: Stereolab
Album: Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements (Elektra, 1993)
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Tags: experimental, avant garde, indie rock, 90s, my gang rotw
Video: Click the pic…

http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/9uMifNKYtug/default.jpg YouTube, audio upload

To celebrate the shiny new pause function for Last.fm radios [blog post], this week's recommended track is Pause by post-rock pioneers Stereolab from the classic Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements.

Pause has one of them, a pause, just before the final minute when the track changes tack completely and becomes something else, ramping up the noise and painful distortion. Before that, dream pop is mixed with keyboards, noise, distorted spoken word, drone and fuzzy rock which, with their clever treatment and those gorgeous progressions, offers a moment to stop and reflect before the 18 minute masterpiece, Jenny Ondioline.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51jzlGCOxtL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

'The Groop's' American debut was not without its problems; the majority of the first 1500 vinyl copies had to be destroyed because of bad pressing quality and one of the tracks had to be re-recorded:

The original version of this LP had a George Harrison sample on 'Pack Yr Romantic Mind' for which we were denied clearance - we had to re-record the track without the sample but Elektra had already manufactured some promo cassettes with the sample. [Official site]

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/347654/Stereolab.jpg

Though I was aware of Stereolab in the 90s, like a lot of people, I never really got into them. I appreciated they were good, admired what I heard, but bought something else. Me and everyone else, by the look of things. There is much high praise for 'the groop' and a similar guilt in a lot of user reviews. If I wasn't searching Last.fm for a song with the word 'pause' in the title today, I wouldn't have found this album.

The sound is ahead of its time for 1993 (when I was mostly listening to Saint Etienne's Foxbase Alpha and feeding my head with Megadog compilations). From Stereolab's inventiveness came both post-rock and britpop, Damon Albarn being a particular fan.

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. [allmusic]

http://mtv-oma.s3.amazonaws.com/static/img/oma-logo.png?rev=201004070152
Once again, Last.fm wins hands down as my favourite music discovery site. I voted as much here. I like a lot of the other music sites too, but I didn't find this track on them and they didn't make me want to listen to Stereolab's entire discography, so fair's fair. Be sure to submit your vote too.

Babs_05

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[My Gang] Stereolab - Pause : Reco of the Week 12 Apr 11

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