Quietly released last year was the first proper solo album by Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier. A touching tribute to her sister, who in Sadier’s words “went on a million year trip/and left everything behind”, The Trip saw Sadier step out from the shadow of Stereolab to make a very revealing album, not only in the way she dealt with her loss, but in how she paid tribute to artists that influenced and inspired her. An album that sparkled in its minimalist approach, The Trip showed a side of Sadier unseen, one that was filled with warmth and emotion, and those little philosophical quirks that you’ve come to expect.

Whilst in London to play a show at Cafe Oto on what was to be the hottest day of the year, Webcuts pulled up a couch with a very suntanned Laetitia to find out what a trip for her it has been.

How have things been for you since Stereolab wound down? You’ve been keeping yourself busy since the release of The Trip, playing the odd solo show here and there. Have you been enjoying yourself?

It’s been great. I didn’t know what to do when Stereolab stopped. I thought that’s it, I’m finished, but things didn’t quite happen like that. First I was offered some money to do a record, and then I lost my little sister and I needed to put all this grief into my art. So I had a reason to do a record, a very sad reason, and although I was really questioning if the world needed yet another record, somehow the universe decided that yes, I should, and then Facebook had people saying ‘Hey, do you want to come and play in Portugal or Belgium?’. All sorts of places.

It’s quite easy to do these things, to pack up a guitar and go, when it’s just you.

Yes. I went to Greece and that was my first show and I could barely play the guitar, and I can still barely play it. Then I went off on tour and supported Mice Parade on their European tour and that was really good to have the momentum of every night playing a show for ten days and then I toured Spain for ten days, and Germany for seven nights in a row. I played in New York and Brooklyn in June and then South America to Brazil and Chile.

Being a left-hander I’m fascinated by the way you play guitar, because you play left-handed but you don’t change the strings around. Is that the way you taught yourself?

Originally, I turned the strings around and realised that whenever I saw a guitar I couldn’t play it, because it was right-handed, so I got fed up with that and thought ‘Sod it, I’m playing right-handed guitar and I’ll play it upside down’. I’m not like a proper musician, a trained musician, so it’s (my playing) is all by ear and ‘oh, I like this chord’ and I don’t know what I’m playing, but they all have names apparently…

You’re playing solo at the moment, how do you feel being alone onstage after decades playing with a band bashing away behind you? Is there a certain clarity in being able to hear yourself think while on stage?

I can hear myself sing, which I enjoy very much! It’s a very different experience but I did find it was hard not being able to hear myself. It was really hard and it made it very frustrating at times because I wanted to hear myself and a voice cannot compete with a loud drummer or a loud amp, and a lot of singers in bands have exactly the same thing. So I did feel a bit crushed and alienated I must say, although I loved the music we were playing, really loved the music, and I still do. But now it’s very, very different. The responsibility is mine and I really enjoy having to fill up the space with a minimum amount of equipment. I always had a frustration with Stereolab that it couldn’t be simple, yet the songs were so beautiful they could’ve stood with just guitar and a voice, but with the dynamic of the band it was always full on, full on, full on… and I thought “How about sometimes we pare it down, and then go full on” but there wasn’t a question of that. I guess I’m repairing certain things with playing alone which I really enjoy at the moment, but I think once I’m stronger with this alone, I will be better prepared to play with new people.

Is that something you’re looking forward to doing in the future?

I think the future is more modular. It could be one, it could be two, it could be three. I’d really like to be a trio. I’d really like that.

As you mentioned before, recording The Trip was a means for you to express your feelings toward the loss of your little sister, but had you made plans to record an album before this happened?

As I said at the time I was wondering whether I should or not, whether there was a reason. A raison d’être, you know. My view on working in the creative field like this is that things are going to have a raison d’être, and Tim was like that. You just don’t do things because it is time, or it’s in the contract. For me it’s more with an emotion there, or a desire. I work really with a desire to do something. So I was questioning whether I wanted to, and things kind of fell into place, and it became a means to act therapeutically around a sad event, and it’s amazing how it worked as well. When I received the final object after it was made, with the sleeve and everything, I just burst into tears because there it all was.

Because of this, do you find it hard to listen to?

No, to me it’s not a sad record. I don’t particularly enjoy listening to my own stuff. Sometimes it comes on the ipod, or sometimes someone will put on, but no, I don’t listen to my own record particularly, but sometimes it’s nice. I’ve rediscovered my old Monade record, A Few Steps More recently, and I thought ‘Oh, that’s quite a nice record. I made a really nice record’, and I didn’t realise at the time that I made a really nice record. Maybe because there was a bit of a complex because of Tim, and he’s a genius and all that, and because of Stereolab and somehow my work could not possibly have the same value. It’s not the same value, it’s different, but I did realise it really has a value.

Your choice of covers on the album are quite interesting and diverse. Gershwin’s “Summertime”, Les Rita Mitsouko’s “Un Soir, Un Chien” , and Wendy and Bonnie’s “By The Sea”. Were these favourite songs of yours or ones that you felt fit within the emotional core of the album?

They all had different reasons to be on the record. “Un Soir, Un Chien” I loved and I always wanted to sing it, so it’s me completely indulging in a long-time fantasy. Richard Swift helped putting that together. With Wendy and Bonnie, I wanted to do a cover version, but it would have to be very different from the original. That was the idea. So I thought this is a really nice poppy song if you speed it up. So it’s a very silly little thing that we knocked together in an afternoon, and it was also honouring Wendy and Bonnie working together at a very young age doing really quite mature and beautiful stuff, and a record that fell into a trap with a bad contract and the record never came out properly until two years ago or something. And “Summertime”, one night I found these chords and I just stated singing “Summertime” over the top of it. When it came to picking tracks to go on the record, I didn’t want this one, because it’s so uncool (in a mocking voice) “Summertime”… but the song was like “Look, I want to be on this record. Let me be on this record”, so I thought “Well, Ok”. The idea about my work is to be guided by it, rather than over-controlling everything to suit my ego.

I would imagine that recording your own music is quite different experience, a more freer and involved one, than with Stereolab. Do you enjoy having that autonomy?

Yes. It’s funny how it’s being in charge, but it’s also letting go and not wanting to control the every aspect. The people I work with, like Richard Swift and how that happened and fell into my lap. It was like the most gorgeous thing that happened to me, getting to work with this guy and his bassist, Yuuki Matthews. Richard supported us in America, and I had asked them to come on tour with us but I could not enjoy them because of some trauma I was going through. Just right at the end I managed to speak a little bit to Richard and go for a walk and somehow we must’ve said ‘Let’s work together one day’. A few months later they come to play in London, the bass player played one note and I nearly fainted. He was such a good bass player. I’ve never really felt that about any bass player. Just one note… They were fabulous, and after the show, Yuuki gets off-stage and comes straight to me and is like “ So I hear you’re going to record with Richard and I would like to be part of this project’ and I was like ‘Oh really? Yes, yes!”, and it happened. So that process I found so enjoyable and I’m really ready to work with Richard again, and Yuuki if he wants to.

Where did you make the album?

In his studio in Cottage Grove near Portland. It was such a fun time. I met a community of people there that was so super, intelligent people, no big egos, people were down to earth, who get on with their lives, who are in charge of their lives rather than sitting and moaning on their asses complaining it’s not good enough or whatever, or having nervous breakdowns or taking drugs, well, they do take a little drugs, but they just do things. Life’s not easy. They understood that, they’re responsible for it. It put me in such a really beautiful space, so I’m ready to go back there.

Logos quickly became a headache for Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox as soon as word went round he was working on a follow-up to last years lengthily titled and ultimately disappointing Let The Blind Lead Those Who Cannot See But Can Feel. Cox who had fallen in and out of strife with his blog postings since Deerhunter became indie scene darlings, had made the mistake of hosting an unfinished version of Logos on his mediashare account, which unknown to him was accessible to all those who went a-poking. Having used his blog to give away his virtual 7” series under his Atlas Sound moniker, Cox was suitably aggrieved when he found his treasure chest looted, threatening to bury Logos altogether.

Thankfully, he didn’t. Released in early 2008, Let The Blind… was a cold, impenetrable and challenging album. Largely recorded by Cox alone on a laptop it was a distant shadow of his work with Deerhunter, but in the space of 18 months, his talent as an artist has grown to match his stature. Making the record slightly less personal, Cox enlisted the help of Noah Lennox of Animal Collective and Laetitia Sadier from Stereolab to turn Logos into what is very much a laid-back pop-oriented album. Logos extends beyond being just a collection of Cox’s home demos and laptop sketches into an enticing cross-section of musical stylings, from acoustic psychedelia and ambient soundscapes, to lush Germanic grooves and effervescent 60’s pop.

Throughout Logos, Cox has threaded a loose stream of consciousness effect that drifts through his lyrics and into the presentation, the overall effect being one of sleepwalking through song, each track seeming to contain a number of loose vocal takes that drift in and out, while the instrumentation is an uncluttered mix of acoustic guitar, live drums and looped ambient pieces seemingly recorded and assembled on the fly. Opening track “The Light That Failed” falls into this blissful dream-like folk-tronica category while songs like “An Orchid” and “Criminals” bring to mind the phrase (and this is not to be taken negatively) “acoustic shoegazing“.

Logos more enticing moments come via the Sesame Street bounce of “Walkabout” built around a sample from “What Am I Going to Do” by 60’s band, The Dovers. It’s a meeting of two minds, combining Animal Collective’s joie de vivre with Deerhunter’s closeted introspection that together outshines the best efforts of either band. The collaboration with Laetitia Sadier “Quick Canal” neatly breaks up the loose folk-loop feel of the album and almost steals the show with its metronomic groove and Sadier’s gallic angelic voice, and at almost 9 minutes long is Logos centrepiece track. But it’s the unabashed romantic pull of “Shelia” that resonates the strongest with its pared down arrangement and oddly poignant “well die alone together” coda that proves just how effective Cox can be on his own.

Well it’s only February, but I am going to go all out and make the call that St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival is Brisbane’s festival of the year. Sorry to tell you, but summer is coming to an end and not all that much happens until December. If you missed it, make sure you get a ticket for next year’s event.

While I am at it I will also award Laneway the “most improved festival award” as well. The 2008 model was simultaneously one of the best and worst festivals I have ever been to. While it had a great bill it suffered from poor sound quality, logistical issues and The Presets. Organising a music festival in the middle of a bunch of city streets may sound like a novel idea but when you add a few thousand people trying to move between awkwardly placed stages into the equation, it can quickly lose its appeal (as evidenced by the discontent with this year’s Melbourne leg).

This was not the case for Brisbane this year though, as the new surrounds near the RNA show grounds was a fantastic location. It provided loads of shaded area, lots of space for easy access to stages or to get away from the hordes and best of all more relaxed noise restrictions. While I am complimenting their efforts, I will also add that the crowd that they managed to pull was more than agreeable as well. It certainly felt like a much more relaxed place than I imagine the Big Day Out would have been, if I hadn’t sworn off going to them years ago.

After a frantic morning effort I arrived in time to catch the last half of Perth buzz band Tame Impala’s set. Impala play a heady mix of lengthy ’60s and ’70s inspired psychedelic rock jams. They pull this off with enough authenticity, to make you wonder how they could have gained their musical tastes at such a young age. There is certainly something to be said for heavy pot smoking parents who bring their children up on a diet of stoner rock.

Still Flyin’s multitude of members come out next onto the car park stage looking a bit like a special ed class version of the Polyphonic Spree. Still Flyin are all about celebration, their stage show is similar to the party atmosphere that early Architecture In Helsinki gigs had back in the day. Not surprising really as they boast a couple of that band’s former members amongst their bloated ranks.  Dub filled reggae infused jams aren’t really my cup of tea at the best of times, but it’s hard to resist the temptation to want to jump on stage and join in by banging on a pot with a wooden spoon.

Yves Klein Blue is a completely improbable band. In fact I wikied it and discovered that the having red hair occurs in roughly one in twenty five people. To form a band with three ginger haired members who aren’t related to each other runs somewhere in the likelihood of one in 15,625. Yet despite defying the odds to grace us with their presence, the band’s reddish pigmentation in their scalps fails to spread and set the stage on fire, for me at least. In all seriousness, YKB did give it their best shot. They played energetically and were certainly appreciated by a sizeable contingent of the crowd that had assembled to watch them. Unfortunately, their mix of rock touchstones that forms the base of their sound is too reminiscent of all the reasons why I have to quickly turn JJJ off after five minutes.

I will have to admit, that if I have been a little hard on Spiral Stairs since the demise of Pavement, it is only because I have always wanted the best for him. I had always hoped that he would emerge from Stephen Malkmus’s shadow, in triumph with some sort of masterpiece, like George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass. It’s tempting to imagine that the secondary song writer in a band has a double album’s worth of awesome songs that they have been holding onto for their first solo outing. The first Preston School of Industry Album quickly put all these hopes to bed by only being…well…just okay. His first tour, for reasons that escape me now, left me a bit cold as well.

Eight years later and with lowered and more realistic expectations, I am pleased to say that I had an absolute ball watching Spiral Stairs. Between his contributions to the Pavement catalogue, the two Preston albums, and his soon to be released solo outing, Spiral has more than enough material to pump out a set that is littered with highlights. Spiral also knows the proper ratio (and placement) of Pavement songs to maintain the interest of a crowd not as familiar with his solo work.

Opening with the classic “Date with Ikea” he quickly drew the punters away from the bar queue and over to the stage. It might not be Pavement but after ten years it is refreshing to hear anyone competently air those songs again, and for now it is all we have… until the inevitable reunion. Highlights from his non-Pavement works, such as “Falling Away” are played, with a Pavement song thrown in for good measure every third or fourth track. Joined by members of Still Flyin, Spiral closes with a crowd pleasing rendition of “Two States” and leaves the stage having convinced more than a few people that they should have been paying more attention to him.

Cut Off Your Hands first graced Laneway three years ago when they were still known as Shaky Hands. Much has changed since then — they decamped to England to record their pop-tastic debut album You & I with Bernard Butler and toured relentlessly — so the crowd at the Alexandria Stage is both respectable and appreciative. Singer Nick Johnston is supremely hyperactive, like an ADD kid who’s drunk a litre of red cordial. He bounds around the stage and leaps into the audience repeatedly and later throws a snare drum that he has been pounding on across the stage. Cut off Your Hands are like the best indie jukebox ever, one heavenly pop hit after another; The Smiths merge with Orange Juice, Gang of Four and fellow countrymen The Chills et al. They falter mid-set when a couple of turgid Joy Division slash Cure style numbers are aired but wisely return to jangly guitar pop for the final stretch.  Nick invites members from the audience up onto the stage, and about thirty take up his offer. He himself is lost in a sea of scenesters, but the band play galiantly on until security demands the dancing fools return to the street. They may not be the most polished act today but COYH are definately Laneway’s most entertaining. (Caleb)

No Age have some awesomely fun songs. They apparently have a leaning towards playing their ramshackle gigs in unusual places such as parks, art spaces, abandoned buildings and libraries. This makes a lot of sense as this will be probably the first and only time I will ever say this: “I would have preferred to have seen them play at Ric’”‘ (Small, infamous venue in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley — Ed). No Age seemingly enforce a level of amateurness upon themselves and while I, for one, don’t want to stop them as I’m not sure they would have the same magic if they were “professional musicians”. The downside is that when pushed into a professional environment it isn’t always going to translate well live. This was one of those days. While they weren’t terrible — they were fun and played with loads of exuberance – it felt like they were separated from the crowd and would do better being able to feed off the energy of audience in a smaller setting. No Age haven’t worked out how to fill a large space with only guitar and drums in the same way that the White Stripes can pull off a Big Day Out set. It would have been far more fun to watch audience members fall over the mic leads mid song and enable the band too have more audience interaction to make up for the sound quality/mixing issues.

A friend standing next to me commented on Jay Reatard as such: “Man, it just sounds like the Ramones”. Well duh. Jay perfectly mines that difficult middle ground between awesome pop melodies and pounding punk guitars. In celebration of Jay’s minimalist punk/pop tendencies, my review should really be summed up with Jay Reatard Owns and just leave it at that. I mean I could spend the rest of the night using the synonyms/thesaurus button on Microsoft Office looking for replacement words for ones I have already used in this review, but sometimes you just want to rock the fuck out. That is exactly what Jay did today.

His songs are short, sharp and stick in your head. They maintain a punk fury while still tasting like sugar. Hell, even when you think things are going to go quiet — when he picks up an acoustic guitar — the song is still distorted and frantic as hell. This was pretty much a set full of highlights for me, although if this isn’t your cup of tea, then you’d probably find it a bit samey. Whatever the qualities that Jay holds that makes him an indie darling, which sees him playing festivals with Stereolab and doing split singles with Deerhunter as opposed to playing to a field full of baseball caps at a Vans Warped tour, isn’t worth dissecting. Just know that Jay is the shit, and so is his rock pose sprouting bass player.

I last saw Stereolab nearly twelve years ago at Brisbane’s now defunct Chelsea venue. It was a stellar gig but one marred due to greedy promoters cynically shoehorning seven hundred punters into a venue designed for half that amount. Although the blazing afternoon heat recalls the oven like temperatures of that night the environs are, thankfully, a lot more spacious. Not that Stereolab ever break a sweat, they’re far too cool and professional for that (apart from ruddy faced Andy Ramsay on drums, bless him). Laetitia Sadier is positively glowing as she graces the stage in a figure hugging black dress, looking at least ten years younger than she actually is — which goes to show what a combination of a Mediterranean diet and good Gallic genes can achieve. Along with the band’s creative force Tim Gane, Sadier dispels any fears Stereolab are more suited to a club atmosphere as she leads the groop through their extensive oeuvre, transporting listeners from the reality of Laneway’s dusty surrounds to somewhere more exotic. The bossanova beats of “Neon Beanbag” and indie-pop of “Silver Sands” from last year’s Chemical Chords sit shoulder to shoulder with the career defining krautrock of “Ping Pong”, the storming psychedelic new wave of “French Disko” and the gorgeous almost-hit “Cybele’s Reverie”. When Laetitia coos “au revoir” everyone is saddened and it’s hard to believe that forty five minutes have elapsed so quickly. (Caleb)

In a set marred by technical difficulties (and flying snare drums), The Drones played what might be the worst set that I have seen them do. Fortunately for those in attendance a below par Drones gig is still better than just about anything else most other bands can come up with. The Drone’s status as the best currently active band in Australia is well deserved. Opening with “Nail it Down” and “Oh My’ from their latest opus Havilah the band are in fine form, with front man Gareth Liddiard’s and Dan Luscombec’s guitar hooks aggressively assaulting those in the crowd.

At some point around this time things start to go wrong — the snare drum gives way and Liddiard’s guitar pedals play up due to water on the stage. These frustrations are clearly starting to take their toll on the band members. In a weird way, this adds to the intensity of the performance, and gives extra weight to each snarl that comes out of Liddiard’s mouth to form his often bitter lyrics. Crowd favourite, “Shark Fin Blues” and a brutally raw cover of Kev Carmody’s “River of Tears” are run through before they finish with the ferocious “I Don’t Want to Change” which concludes with a flying snare drum connecting with drummer Mike Noga’s (or should that be Noggin – Ed) head. Ouch.

The popularity of The Hold Steady among the alternative (read Laneway) crowd is something of a mystery to me. Their style of sing-a-long bar room rock can be heard in almost any pub, in any city, any night of the week, yet here they are pulling the Car Park stage’s largest audience of the day. Due credit to Craig Finn though, a more unpretentious and ebullient frontman I’ve yet to see — his flailing arms and general mincing around the stage is extremely entertaining. Finn’s gruff vocals may have limited range but he writes engaging, clever narratives and it’s hard not to get caught up in the band’s enthusiasm. I feel like an outsider though as I’m only familiar with one song (“Sequestered in Memphis”, which luckily they play) unlike everybody else who seem to know every single line to every single song. In a rare case of exquisite timing I venture over to the Alexandria street stage to see the last two songs of some seven piece tribal-electro band — oh, it’s Architecture in Helsinki — just as The Hold Steady’s bass amp blows out. Befuddled by Architecture’s transformation from twee-pop band to electro art rock collective I resume avoiding swaying bodies at the Car Park arena where The Steady wrap up pretty much the same way they started. (Caleb)

As I learn’t from my Hold Steady experience, unfamiliarity with a band’s catalogue is rarely a good thing. A nearly twenty minute delay waiting for a band, in this case Augie March, doesn’t help. Neither does a lack of vocals in the mix for the first few songs — Glenn Richards’s voice is underpowered enough as it is. While listening to Augie March’s austere set I try to stay awake by attempting to catergorise each song into suitable genres. Indie rock, folk, pop, alt.country, singer-songwriter — all bases are covered but after ten hours of sun burn, beer and sore limbs it falls a little flat. The ever thinning numbers confirm I’m not the only one suffering from fatigue and disinterest. After forty odd minutes of increasing numbness in my lower extremities I welcome Richard’s declaration that they have to wrap it up. He offers either “One Crowded Hour” or “This Train Will be Taking No Passengers” as a final kiss-off and despite the calls for the former chooses “Train”. This is a good move as the rollicking, country blues injects some life into the limp set. While it was too little, too late for me a friend of mine, an Augie March fan, loved the gig. Maybe it was just a case of right band, wrong time? (Caleb)

The Brisbane Laneway festival pretty much managed to get everything right this year. Congratulations guys, festivals are a hard thing to pull off. Instead of recapping and harping on about how much better things were this year, I want to leave a request for next year. Organisers, if you are reading this, please for the love of God bring Deerhunter out. While you are at it can bring their side projects, Atlas Sounds and Lotus Plaza as well, like you did with Broken Social Scene in 2008? You know you can do it.

Text Credits: Scott Daniels (except Caleb Rudd where indicated).
Photo Credits: Charlyn Cameron.

Phew, it’s been a hectic January/February for Australian/NZ gig-goers but there’s one last festival of the Summer and it’s almost upon us — St Jerome’s Laneway festival. We made it last year to the Brisbane leg and had a great time swaying to Damn Arms, The Devastations, Feist, Stars and Broken Social Scene. Once again the line-up is suitably star studded so to help you navigate your timetable here are our picks:

 
Spiral Stairs
Webcuts makes no apologies for our love of Pavement and with Spiral Stairs (Scott Kannberg), an integral part of the DNA of that band and soon to release a solo effort (after two albums as Preston School of Industry) we’re pretty excited about seeing the man in action. Just don’t call out for “Cut Your Hair”, kay?
 

 
Architecture in Helsinki
Cameron Bird and his flock have had a busy couple of years since 2007′s Places Like This which received a mixed critical reception but was warmly received by fans, especially after witnessing them in concert. With another slice of skewed pop Vision Revision ready to drop, 2009 is shaping up to be another full-on year for the Melbourne five piece.
 

Plus

Augie March, Girl Talk, Holly Throsby, Pivot, Port O’Brien,The Drones and many more.

What: Laneway Festival
Where/When: Brisbane – Sat 31 Jan, Melbourne – Sun 1 Feb, Perth – Fri 6 Feb, Adelaide – Sat 7 Feb, Sydney – Sun 8 Feb
Website lanewayfestival.com.au

Webcuts will naturally feature a full review with lot’s of nice pictures after the Brisbane date.

Stereolab were an essential part of the 90s and a flipside to the wave of angst-ridden guitar bands that characterised that decade. Influenced by obscure experimental and pop bands, Stereolab set about creating a post-rock avant-garde sound that would hold them in high regard with critics and music fans alike. Returning with their eleventh album in a career that has already spanned eighteen years, Chemical Chords finds Stereolab rewriting their pop manifesto.

It’s chicken or the egg question when I try and remember what it was that drew me to Stereolab. The hypnotic half-inched Neu! rhythms, the antique analogue synth melodies, or Laetitia Sadier’s voice. Her stunning looks and seductive Gallic tones seemed to be at once soothing and alluring. Her bilingual vocals gave the band an extra depth, part political, part philosophical that combined with Tim Gane’s penchance for krautrock and avant garde artists made Stereolab an intelligent band by default. You could either follow/translate Sadier’s messages or Gane’s influences or both. During the mid-90s, the Stereolab sound mutated into a mix of bossanova rhythms and lounge music cool, which divided fans who weren’t so impressed.

It is then with great surprise to realise that Chemical Chords could well be the best Stereolab album in recent years. Written and recorded very quickly, it becomes apparent from an initial listen that songs aren’t entirely a predictable melange of bossanova rhythms and Laetitia’s occasionally irritating “doop-doop-doop’s”. Songs are still cut from the same Stereolab cloth, but this time there’s a distinct and delectable 60 feel to the record — the Monkees harpsichord sound, the Beach Boys upbeat bop. The title track is a symphonic surprise with its sweeping strings, reminiscent of Emperor Tomato Ketchup-era single “Cybele’s Reverie”. The burst of Motown horns on “Three Women” and the spritely toe-tapper “Self Portrait with Electric Brain’ dazzle under the glow of longtime collaborator and High Illama, Sean O’Hagan strings and brass arrangements. “Pop Molecule” with its back-masked drum loop teasingly (and briefly) recalls the old groop grooves from a decade ago.

Having viewed each successive Stereolab release of the last decade with palpable caution and wariness, Chemical Chords is a refreshing and enjoyable listen. Whatever the circumstances that brought this around, be it Tim Gane’s intent to create a collection of “purposefully short, dense, fast pop songs” or the collision of Gane’s ideas with O’Hagan’s arrangements, Chemical Chords is the last of the great summer records of 2008.