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Amazon.com essential recording:
You want retro? Get a load of their equipment, from the vintage
Farfisa and Vox organs to the ever-lovableMoog synthesizers. You
want futurist? It's the sound of not-so-well-oiled machinery, churning
and sputtering into space age bachelor pad heaven and postindustrial
hell. You want pure pop? Dig how they mine mod sounds of the '60s,
from Burt Bacharach to Françoise Hardy, and pull melodies
straight out of a bubblegum wrapper. You want avant garde? Check
the blatant liftings from '70s krautrockers Neu! and Can, plus their
appropriations of Philip Glass's disjointed wordplay and Ornette
Coleman's jagged alto sax.
You want meaning? These are songs loaded with optimism, progressivism,
humanism, and dashes of Marxism. You want nonsense? There's plenty
of "la-la-la's" to lead us into oblivion, and head vocalist
Laetitia Sadier sings half the time in French.
You want a groove band? Tracks like "Metronomic Underground"
and "Les Yper-Sound" cast a funk trance heavier than voodoo
and at least as danceable as any neo-hippie tripe. You want a band
that rocks? Try "The Noise of Carpet" for its rug-burning
guitar and acceleration drum whacks. Yesterday, tomorrow, now: Stereolab's
the one.
Roni Sarig
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