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reviews
Stereolab & Tortoise at Gloucester Guildhall
A white Funkadelic with Piet Mondrian at the helm...
source: Melody Maker
by Neil Kulkarni
1996-03-02
They play Wu-Tang Clan in between [Tortoise and Stereolab]. Any other double rock bill and Iíd take it as an apology, a desperation to show theyíre aware of the limits, if not exactly pushing themselves, shackled as they are to the practical gap ëtween imagination and realisation. But they have no need to apologise; both bands understand that the way rock works is precisely in that chafing point where unlimited desire and the machine in front of you start ripping each other to pieces. And tonight is two bouts of controlled, violent sex Iím more than willing to watch unfold.
ìStereolab?î asked a friend before I left. ìArenít they too white for you?î ìBut thatís what I like about themî, I snapped back. I have no idea what Stereolab are on about, all that French-disko-Krautrock-ezylizznin-Situationsit-Marxist-bubblegum schtick is out of my mental reach. And therein lies their appeal. Itís the steely implacability of their ideas, their monomaniacal intent in perfecting them, the fact that because their particular mix of aesthetics is so peculiar to them it seems as if theyíre making music to soundtrack their own lives. Whatever they may be like.
I havenít seen a show both so lacking in individual ego and so totally suggestive ñ of ideas I donít understand, personalities I have no idea of, lifestyles I canít envisage. So what reels me in? The hooks, the sounds, the hints left, the politics (they at least are immediate and amenable) and the moments where they funk like a bastard. Yeah, you heard me.
ìMetronomic Undergroundî nicks wholesale the rhythm section from Masta Aceís ìTake A Look Aroundî and layers it with lambent waves of Pram-like synth. The best tracks tonight come from the new LP; they have a warmth that was previously lacking, a thumping, chunky boom-bap physicality that stops Stereolab being a purely mental exercise and turns them into something like a neo-plasticist groove collective, a white Funkadelic with Piet Mondrian at the helm. ìEmperor Tomato Ketchupî is just slamming, Pere Ubu circa The Modern Dance, but even more dead on, garage music for the psyche, perfected and stellar. ìMotoroller Scalatronî has a nursery-rhyme vocal but jettisons the Labís usual 4/4 surge for a more open rattle and thump; everything else is still in place and perfect but this new awareness of beats and space is propelling Stereolab into new, fascinating territories all the time.
Stereolab are finally becoming a band you can love rather than admire, a band where your physical response doesnít feel inferior to your understanding. And yet their rhetoric, because itís bound up entirely in their look and stage presence, maintains a cool intrigue that forces you to keep decoding, keep listening.
Thatís the addiction. Make way for the motherlode.
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