Stereolab

The First of the Microbe Hunters

Heard Here Rating:
"Yes, I'd rather be eating somewhere else!! You think, just because you pay my tuition, I have to pretend to enjoy this shit? Fuck You!"

Emerging in the early '90's on the experimental English label Too Pure, Stereolab began fashioning a sound world for those bored by the standard indie fare of loud guitars and half-hearted singing. Coupling the Motorik rhythmic pulse of Krautrockers Neu! with space age bachelor pad exotica, Stereolab positioned itself as one of the decade's most consistent and forward-thinking bands. Reaching their peak on 1993's masterpiece, Transient Random Noise-Bursts with Announcements, the "groop" began looking for new sounds to absorb into their ever-flexible frame. Subsequent albums and EPs embraced funk, tropicalia, glitchtronica, avant-jazz and cut-up (check their collaboration with UK weirdo band Nurse With Wound).

Functioning as a stopgap between albums, Stereolab's new EP, the forty-minute The First of the Microbe Hunters, promises much but doesn't quite deliver. Some songs sound like Dots and Loops outtakes minus the sputtering beats, while "Barock-Plastik" has the 'Lab getting their peculiar brand of funk on. Not Stereolab's best work, but this EP will keep their fans satiated while they dream up the latest tweak of their amorphous sound.