STEREOLAB

Peng! / The Groop Played “Space Age Batchelor Pad Music” too PURE / BEGGARS ARKIVE Clear vinyl reissues of first two albums from indie’s kraut-reviving revolutionaries.

Stereolab didn’t exactly burst onto the scene in the early 90s, but inveigled their way into indie’s collective consciousness via a series of limited edition singles and EPs, such that by the time of these two releases – their 1992 debut and a mini-LP from the 1993 – an underground buzz had grown up around them. They’re one of the groops that matter, creating and defining a scene that combined fragments of the past – krautrock, library music, exotica, etc – in a way that sounded fresh. Compared to Britpop and grunge, it was a quiet revolution, but one nonetheless.

The great leap forward was still very much in the middle of happening on these early releases though, with Peng! tracks such as Orgiastic clearly in hock to the prevailing shoegaze sound of the time. But Stereolab’s idea was to de-emphasise “noise-as-rush” and instead focus on drone and repetition as an expressway to yr skull – the beats may be more indie disco than motorik, but there’s an immersive, hypnotic quality to these songs, and more often than not, no verse/chorus dynamic, just a sense of the constant now.

Yet it’s on the more contemplative material where they really shine, in particular when Laetitia Sadier’s allusive, close-mic’ed vocals come to the fore against a backwash of Farfisa organ and

Moog, such as on Super Falling Star. Elsewhere, there’s an experimental, though never alienating, sensibility, whether it’s the big effected drums of You Little Shits or the electro-shock throb of Mellotron.

By the time of Space Age Batchelor Pad Music, their sound had evolved to encompass both a post-ironic easy listening vibe (Ronco Symphony) and the full-blooded embrace of Neu! (before everybody else got there) on We’re Not Adult Orientated.

A re-flowering of progressive tendencies in alternative music, these albums reset the co-ordinates for a whole generation, not just in their influences, but in their attitude too.