The end of the Stereolab?

Album: Sound-Dust
Artist: Stereolab

Mary Hansen, one of the singers in the band Stereolab, died a few weeks back in London in a "cycling accident." Only in places like London or Europe do pop stars perish under such bucolic circumstances. The news of Hansen’s death may not have dealt the entertainment world any serious blows, but it does call into question the future of Stereolab.

Since about 1990, this English/Belgian confection has been putting out music that defies categorization, though it is certainly can be labeled "pop" music. It will never find its way onto MTV or FM radio, and it’s always been "indy" by necessity. Beloved by alternative bands like Sonic Youth (who played Stereolab before their set here in Manila), the music of Sean O’Hagen (also in The High Llamas), Tim Gane, Andy Ramsey and co-singer Laetitia Sadier taps into a rich vein of ’60s pop, including frothy go-go dance, tambourine-driven girl-group music, guitar-needling Velvet Underground drones, plus the weird and wild sounds of Martin Denny, Esquivel, Henry Mancini and other "lounge music" pioneers.

Lately, with their contribution to the Red, Hot and Rio CD and on their 2001 release, Sound-Dust, Stereolab seemed to be touching on Brazilian pop as well. Stereolab is not a band that stands still for very long, though some complain of a certain languor in their last few records. The fact that they continued to go their own way, heedless of fashion, yet fashionable in their quirky tastes, made them fun to have around. On Sound Dust, songs are apt to shift gear from harpsichord lullabies to bass-driven grooves on a dime. Weird time-changes, piled harmonies and even more piles of organ lend their music an almost gothic enchantment. Add to this the lyrics (half the time sung in French) which tend to recite epigrams and slogans about work and play, and you have a seriously enigmatic band on your hands.

Sound Dust is not my favorite Stereolab album (I still canít get over my initial awe at hearing 1993’s Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements), but it has its sublime pleasures. Guitars are virtually absent now, as are the Velvets-style 18-minute drones they used to orchestrate with abandon. More subtle time shifts, ’60s kick-bass drumming, harpsichords – and of course, O’Hagen’s Vox Organ – take the forefront. This allows more intricate vocal work by Hansen and Sadier, such as the call-and-response phrases interwoven into Nothing To Do With Me. A song like Captain Easychord may hang on a simple piano chord change, but when it lurches into country-twang somewhere in the middle, it brings magic to the ears, a smile to the face.

This is because Stereolab are like children who secretly rifle through their parents old LP record collection, playing weird and exotic sounds on the hi-fi while mom and dad are at work, and getting goofy and giggly over it all. That this naive enchantment with pop sometimes translates into Stereolab’s best music makes them something special. "Doublerocker," also off Sound Dust, begins with trickling keyboards, builds slowly into swirls of organ and atonal clusters of notes, then adds off-notes from flugelhorns and trumpets. And just when it threatens to become ponderous or pretentious, it switches over to a bit of light, psychedelic ’60s pop. And Les Bons Bons Des Raisons, the final cut on Sound-Dust, ends with a cycle of looped, chanted lyrics – something along the lines of "She gives me chocolat, it’s far better than reason" – over and over again until you begin to smile and get what Stereolab have been telling you all along: Who needs logic when you can have pleasure?