Lock-Groove Dancepop
an interview with
Tim Gane of Stereolab
by Dave Harrison
The new Stereolab album, Dots and Loops, is the band's seventh in five years and possibly its least well-received. Most hardcore fans find it brilliant or abysmal, while reviewers have tended to be in the middle. This very magazine, Grip, trashed it mildly in late '97, prompting Rex and I to drive to C-ville and kick the writer's ass good and proper (you owe me one, Tyler).
With no real "single" on the new album, the group put out a cover of Brian Eno's "St. Elmo's Fire" a collaboration with New Yorkers Ui by January, and there are even rumblings of a split 7" with Richmond's own Drunk in the near future.
Stereolab was formed in 1991 by dreamy Britboy Tim Gane and his cool Parisian "partner," Laetitia Sadier, but they made the mistake of letting in Australianite Mary Hansen in 1992, and she's ruled the 'lab roost ever since. It's Mary's vox that coos the opening lines to last year's acclaimed Emperor Tomato Ketchup LP "Crazy/ Study/ A Tor.../....pedo."
The band started out playing rousing, Velvet Underground- and Neu-inspired post-punk, but gradually evolved in a spacier, then jazzier, and now groovier outfit.
The band's main songwriter and co-leader, Tim Gane, was a bit defensive about the new album ("It's my favorite") in a recent phone interview from Chicago, where he talked about the band's extraordinary output of non-LP singles and side-project songs, as well as the directions the group has taken toward Brazilian-influenced dance pop.
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Grip You have a unique contract with Elektra Records that lets you put out more experimental singles as imports in America, but limits the number that can be sold. Ideally, would you want to make "Seeperbold" and "Soop Groove" available in unlimited editions, or would you rather not have fans and the public think of them as "official" releases?
Gane It's a landmine area. Anywhere you step you're in danger of having one go off. As the situation has existed, there's this black market where people pay inflated prices to get [Stereolab] stuff in America that you could buy for a couple of pounds in Britain. We do think it's a problem that we can't export singles like "Fluorescences" in large numbers [to America], but we've changed that a bit. Now we can export 10,000 copies. But the problem is that, for 10,000 people to get a record easily, you would have to print up 30,000. For those people who can't get hold of everything, we do plan to put out a Switched-On 3 [compilation of rare tracks] next year, and it'll probably be a double CD.
Grip I have to tell you that most of my favorite 'lab songs didn't even make it onto albums or EPs. Is it hard to record a song as beautiful as "Spinal Column" or as groovy as "Klang Tone" and then say, 'nah, it's a B-side. Let's bury it'?
Gane We want to try to do different things musically like the new tour single, we recorded that in a day, completely unprepared, a week before the tour. But when it's not going out [in large numbers], it takes the pressure off us and we can try new thingsand in some cases enjoy ourselves more in the studio. Not every record should be for everybody.
Grip I understand from very unreliable sources that Elektra was disappointed with the lack of commerciality of Dots & Loops. Did that message ever get conveyed to you?
Gane More people thought the last album [Emperor Tomato Ketchup, the group's biggest seller] was uncommercial, especially in the beginning when it didn't look like it would sell. But there was no single for that, really, and [the label] still has to get used to what we do. I think my idea of pop music is different than what it is for other people, especially over here [in America]. I really don't think we can be a singles group here. We do love singles, but we do them in our own way. On the other hand, the new record has sold more than Emperor Tomato Ketchup at this phase. The label apparently is happy with it.
Grip Is your contract w/ Elektra on an album-by-album basis, or are you secure with them for a few more releases?
Gane We do it in two album jumps, and we have one left.
Grip Dots and Loops and Transient Random Noise-Bursts With Announcements seem to be the dividing line albums, the ones people either really love or can't stand. And they're such different albums. Any sense of why?
Gane I really don't know. I think my perspective on that is different than yours because it really varies from country to country. In America, they really side toward the guitar-based end of what we do. When Emperor Tomato Ketchup came out, in America I just had a barrage of people saying, 'what is this funky shit?' I really thought a lot of people hated that album, although it seemed to turn around. But in Japan, they didn't take to us until that album came out.
The new LP, I think, is much more esoteric in the sense that it has more layers and it's a record that sounds completely different the more you listen to it. I think people's initial reaction changes more than with the other albums, and that's how it was designed. But I still don't understand some people's attitude toward it. They'll say 'I don't really like the album so much; it doesn't have any hard-ish guitars.' So if we put the hard-ish guitars on it then they'd like it. But the thing is, the album has loads of guitars, they're just all transmuted. But if most people feel that way, that's alright, really. It just means we've become a little less predictable, that we're developing.
Grip I know that the musical tracks on Dots And Loops are made up entirely of samples. Can you explain the recording process in as technical a way as you want?
Gane It's not really sampled. We recorded little bits onto a hard disk, onto a computer; and we'd take the most interesting bits and loop them, or move them in and out, and then at the end of the recording we'd have all these things we could move around. But it's very suitable to the way we record anyway, where we like to try different things.
Grip You've said D&L is a rare product of your listening to contemporary music rather than older bands who are you listening to now? I know "Parsec" sounds a bit like Squarepusher, with the sped up percussion.
Gane Yeah, that's true, although "Parsec" actually got that sound quite by accident. A lot of the music I listen to is very electronic, a lot of dance music. I really like a lot of French stuff like Air and Kidlove [??]. I do like Squarepusher. I like a lot of German, Cologne music like Kriedlove [?] and Die Auch and Kaori. But the main influence on the new album is soundtracks. [We discuss the scores for "You Only Live Twice" and "Ana" in an overly precious manner]. I was also very influenced by psychedelic movies of the 60s, and by the experimental filmmakers ... like Kenneth Brakhage, how they would make their little loops of film and bring [images] in and out.
Grip Speaking of crazy psychedelicists, let's talk about Mary Hansen. Do you write songs with her in mind now?
Gane Sometimes I'll write a line I'll know is going to be the main line for Laetitia. But usually I just write two vocal parts and see who can sing themand a lot of times they actually choose between themselves. Mary can sing higher than Laetitia.
Grip How good a guitarist is Mary?
Gane Ah, she's good, I suppose [laughs]. I mean, she's plays like her personality.
Grip Live, you seem to have settled into a groove of playing only songs from "Peng" or before, or from "Emperor" on.
Gane Well, I think it's because we went through a lot of personnel changes during that [middle] time and never really learned a lot of [the early] songs well, so we'd just dump them when the next tour came up. Now, we're sick of playing "Ping" and "French Disco" and want to play some of those earlier songs. But, what's important, is that we usually play them at a point in the show where we need a song to lead into something else [he hints at "a jam," but doesn't use that term].
Grip Well, since you and Laetitia have been the core of the band, and you've also been romantic partners, can I ask how you guys are doing personally?
Gane We're alright. [laughs] We're fine. It's funny, because a lot of people will see us on stage and be convinced that we just hate each other or aren't speaking. And I don't know where that comes from. They come up with all sorts of things. They always thought [former keyboardist Katherine Gifford] was very unhappy, and I always thought quite the opposite.
Grip Do the other band members listen to things you don't listen too right now, music that might have an influence on the band?
Gane Yeah, Richie [bassist Richard Harrison] is very into jazz, but he likes a lot of newer jazz that I don't like. And some of it I like a lot. Mary likes dub, I suppose. Andy [drummer Andy Ramsay] likes a lot of folk music, folk guitars, some of which I don't especially listen to. He fixes guitars, actually.
Grip I was afraid this interview would be too much about the music business and not enough about your music, so I've drawn up a list of seven songs, and I'm hoping you'll give either your opinion of their worth, or what you remember of recording them.Let's start with "K-Stars" from Peng.
Gane "K-Stars?" Hmmn. I'm terrible with the titles. Is that one about the French, Paris? ah... yeah. But that was very nice, a great job by Laetita, I thought. One of the first times the music and the lyrics seemed to be made for each other.
Grip Our Trinitone Blast"
Yeah, that's one of our best songs from that time. It was a different one for us because it's kind of painful, filled with angst. We used to do it very well live and we should probably try to do that again. But it was the hardest song for Laetita to sing, and I think that's why we cut it. And, you know, that whole album, Transient, was just completely a mad nightmare to record. I have no good memories of that record at all.
Grip Klang Tone"
Klang Tone? Is that the single we did for "Mars Audiac?" We did about three versions of it. I like that piano motif, and sort of rockabilly baseline, even though I remember it coming out like the Velvet Underground. You know, I haven't heard that song since we recorded it!
Grip "The Brush Descends The Length?"
Is that the one with the Wurlitzer organ? We wrote that entire record ["Music For The Amorphous Body Study Center"] in two or three days. They had to have the songs for an art exhibition and we did it very quickly.
Grip "The Noise Of Carpet?"
I didn't like that track at all. I didn't want it on the album, but I was outvoted by the group, and that was fair enough. It's a very nasty song. {So do you know who it's about?} I can't remember, but Laetitia is very much honest and upfront, someone to say what she thinks, and a lot of people in England believe that if you say what you think it means more than what you're saying. It may have been more general, about the people around her in England.
Grip "Young Lungs?"
That was a great lesson for us. We used to play it live on our [1995] tour with Yo La Tengo and it worked really well, it would become very heavy and noisy. But when we tried to record it, it just didn't work at all. We should have recorded it live with no overdubs. It's taught me not to play a good song live before we record it [laughs]. Isn't that terrible?
Grip "Contronatura?"
That's probably my favorite. There's not a lot going on but it still has an experimental quality to it, this 'ding-ding-ding-ding' that gets to your subconscious after a while. It was supposed to be more funky, I think, but it really came out with an experimental quality. When we're recording, we don't always control the music, we just develop it, and that song is a good example. We could not control it.
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Grip's Stereolab mix tape (TDK 100-SD)
A
Superfalling Star
Endless Summer
Prisoner Of Mars
Lo-Fi
Young Lungs
The Extension Trip
Spinal Column
Cybelle's Reverie
New Orthophony
Pause
Doubt
Refractions In The Plastic Pulse (Pt. 1)
You Used To Call Me Sadness
You Little Shits
B
Tickertape Of The Unconscious
Our Trinitone Blast
Klang Tone
French Disko
Pinball
"Get Carter" Theme
The Brush Descends The Length
Monster Sacre
Allures
L'enfer Des Formes
Fluorescences
(Varoom!)
Perversion
Revox
Golden Ball