Stereolab – Chemial Chords [4AD]

When I first heard Chemical Chords I had just moved into a new apartment in Mexico City at the height of the rain season; a season that I so ignorantly didn’t know existed. The initial days in the apartment were grey, damp and mopey. But within a few days the August sun returned and I was buried under the hot smog and wires with a new Stereolab record. Chemical Chords is a groove-pop album layered within a canopy of lush instrumentation. Though on Chemical Chords they haven’t broken any new ground, their consistency and ability to invent catchy, intricate and exploratory material all wrapped up in a lovely candy coated package is beyond my feeble mind. A continual complaint I hear regarding Stereolab’s newer recordings is that they still sound like Stereolab. But why reinvent, when their sound is unique, identifiable, and open to a spectrum of possibilities. In fact the consistency of Chemical Chords forced me to revisit their impressive ten album back catalog. Stereolab quickly became the soundtrack to my summer in Mexico City. Whether in my kooky apartment, buzzing down unknown streets, through hectic markets and colonias or in stuffy subway cars, Stereolab was always nearby as a backdrop to an unpredictable metropolis. And like the modernity that sculpts massive cities, Stereolab’s approach to melding sound lies in their ability to merge, expand and alter styles. Their fuel is amalgamation and it harbors their distinctiveness. Shifting and working within reverberations of the 50’s space race to Kraut rock rhythms, from 60’s sunshine pop to post-modern electronica and from avant-lounge to acute walls of sound, Stereolab has erected a beaming radio tower that illuminates the groups depth, sonic prosperity and prolificacy.

Bardos Freedoom