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Hello Sorry State Newsletter readers. What’s up? Thanks for clicking on us again and supporting independent record stores. It’s been a busy week… at least it felt like it. A lot going on in the world of politics, sport and music. We’ll leave the politics alone for now and of course we’ll talk music, but I couldn’t not mention Liverpool F.C. winning the English Premier League and how happy that makes me feel. Obviously that either means nothing to many of you and might piss off some others, but in the spirit of love and brotherhood I just want to congratulate them and all the other teams that played some beautiful football and provided us with another great season. Although we won it a month ago, there was still something to play for and jeopardy involved for several teams right up to the last day. I couldn’t celebrate fully because I had to work Sunday, but I was at least able to watch the game live on my phone at the counter. LoL. Last night and today have been spent watching all the after-game celebrations and the open top bus parade through the city of Liverpool. Even in the rain they turned out in the thousands. Great stuff. (Although I have just read at the time of writing that there was an incident involving a car crashing into a crowd of people at the end of the parade. I don’t have the details but that’s not the end of the day story we wanted to hear about. Certainly, sending love to the families of those concerned.)
Okay, back to music. The reason you are here. This week I have been trying to catch up with my records to play queue, both at home and at the store. Just too many records and not enough time. We’ve also had a few small record buys during the week and they all had interesting records that I wanted to check out and hear. However, the record that I was excited about most and will select as my pick for this week is the new one from Stereolab, titled Instant Holograms On Metal Film. It was officially released this past Friday, and we did sell out of our copies, but we’ll get some more.
This is the group’s eleventh studio album and the first new music in over a dozen years. They’re also out on tour. John Scott and I have been monitoring the cost of tickets for a sold out show here in North Carolina. It would be cool to get to see them again. I have always liked them, but wouldn’t call myself a huge, huge fan. I bought most of their albums on CD at the time, but have one or two vinyl pressings and have been slowly picking up the nice reissues that have been coming out over the past few years. Stereolab were formed over thirty years ago and have released a lot of music. In addition to the eleven studio albums, there are several volumes of singles, B-sides, outtakes and demos collections. Lots of music and lots of records to collect if you like them. I certainly have a long way to go to own them all. However, with Stereolab, you can almost jump in with any of their records. Sure, to the connoisseur, there are some albums and songs that are considered to be their best, but the overall quality has never dropped really, and the sound doesn’t drastically change from record to record. They are dependably the same, yet the music is always different. That’s a contradiction I know, but it’s true. This new album is no different in my opinion. It could have come out at any time during their prime. A couple of weeks ago John Scott was playing various Stereolab albums and the new one had a few tracks available to stream. He switched to them and, as we were listening, I couldn’t tell that we had changed and were listening to the new material.
I bought a vinyl copy so that Matt and I would have one to play on our radio show and did get to play a track on today’s show. It’s still a little too early for me to pick out a favorite, but I have played it in full a few times now and can honestly say it is a good record, and I am enjoying it. A worthy return after so many years away.
I’m going to assume everyone reading knows about Stereolab, but if perhaps you are younger and missed out on them or they just didn’t make your radar, I would highly recommend you investigate. Providing what they do is a sound you dig. I think they have universal appeal. They draw from lots of different places for inspiration. Electronic music and Avant Garde mixed with pop and easy listening. Bossa Nova next to 60s French Pop. It’s all there in the mix. Reliable, dependable, inspiring, thought provoking, danceable, fun, cool and never boring. All things you could label them with.
Last week in the newsletter Daniel mentioned that we had responded to requests to stock Broadcast records in the store and so we did, and they have been getting snagged by many of you. Broadcast and Stereolab often get mentioned together as they came to fame around the same time, share similar influences and have a similar esthetic. I wanted to pick up a couple of their records on vinyl too, as I only had CDs of most of them. One that I did grab and have been enjoying is their Peel Sessions compilation titled Maida Vale, named after the BBC studios where the sessions were recorded. This set compiles three Peel sessions from the late 90s along with a fourth recorded for the Evening Session program. Fantastic stuff and another band worthy of investigation if you are unfamiliar. Sadly, both groups share more than just a sound. Tragedy hit both. Stereolab lost long time member Mary Hansen in 2002 to a traffic accident and Broadcast lost lead singer Trish Keenan to pneumonia in 2011. These radio sessions are terrific and highly recommended, as are any of the Broadcast studio albums really. Do yourself a favor and check them out too. Between the two groups they epitomize the sound of the 90s discovering lost sounds from the 60s and 70s.
Okay, the deadline bell is tolling. That’ll have to do it for this week. Thanks again for reading and see you next time.
Cheers - Dom