Stereolab's Chemical Chords Review, Listening Party Preview

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Stereolab/Jaguar Love Listening Party at The Beauty Bar
Friday, August 15
Beauty Bar (7th St. at Red River)
No Cover, 21+
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More than fifteen years into their career, Stereolab have released their first true pop album, Chemical Chords, which all but throws out the art house once and for all and high-tails it for the house party. The London band are textbook example of '90s critical darlings who have evaded huge mainstream success but still managed to spawn millions of (similarly Moog-endowed) pretenders, most of whom lack the whimsy and experimental chops that have marked the band as happily unconventional since their first appearance in 1991 with the Super 45 EP.

Since then, the band pushed from a gritty, lo-fi approach into the realm of sticky-sweet pop, Olivier Mourgue chaise-lounge jazz, and John Cage futurism. The end result was eight previous albums of art-rock craft that were sometimes befuddling, truly unique, and excellent more often than not. Working once again with arranger and High Llamas frontman Sean O’Hagan, Stereolab’s new record is about softening edges, O’Hagan’s swooping orchestration, and keeping their eyes on the prize. The longest song on the album is the title track, which barely reaches into five minutes. Compare this to the seventeen and a half minutes of “Refractions in the Plastic Pulse” on 1997’s Dots and Loops or the eight-minute opener “Metronomic Underground” on Emperor Tomato Ketchup, and you can see how set apart Chemical Chords is from its brothers and sisters in the band’s eclectic discography.

‘Course, that’s not to say Chemical Chords is watered-down Stereolab – just a condensed, sleeker version. Coming in at just two and a quarter minutes, “Valley Hi!” is made resplendent with Lætitia Sadier’s pitch-perfect French, a bouncy, off-kilter beat that manages to sound trippy even in standard time, and a fountain of synthesizer, vibraphone, and horns. In his track by track commentary, lead man Tim Gane says about this one: “It was twice as long originally. I really wanted the album to be full of short, poppy tracks – fast and straight ahead - so we cut it in half.” The condensing continues: “Silver Sands” is up and away on a skippy tangent of clipped tambourine and Sadier’s ringing harmonies, and “Nous Vous Demandons Pardon” features the same unusual musical phrasing that propels “Valley Hi!” but stretches it into five minutes of true alternative rock.

Well, maybe Stereolab haven’t shelved their weirdness per se, and likely never will. If anything, this record gives The Groop the opportunity to tighten their songcraft, and listeners isolated by the sometimes-tedious experiments in sound that gave the band their oddball arc should appreciate this more open, serotonin-pumping sound. While no one track is as spectacular as oldie “John Cage Bubblegum” or the slow-building “Double Rocker” off 2001’s Sound-Dust, Stereolab, nearly twenty years later, still know what time it is, and thank goodness for that.

But why take our word for it? This Friday at The Beauty Bar, Central Booking, Matador Records, the Beggars Group and Austinist are throwing a listening party for both Chemical Chords and the new Jaguar Love release, Take Me to the Sea. There’s no cover, DJ Prince Klassen will be spinning, and the Beauty Bar is also promising drink specials and giveaways.

Stereolab: [website] [myspace]
Jaguar Love: [website] [myspace]
DJ Prince Klassen: [myspace]