Stereolab: Chemical Chords (4AD)

 |   |  <1 min read

Stereolab: Daisy Click Clack
Stereolab: Chemical Chords (4AD)

Last week, for reasons too embarrassing to explain, we went on a brief bender of Roger Moore's Bond films. Awful, slow, wooden and guaranteed to have you asleep on the couch within 20 minutes.

Anyway, my suspicion is that Stereolab might have been doing much the same at some point because there are a few tracks here which could have stepped neatly out of those soundtracks as incidental music when Bond is walking down a boulevard, entering a hip Parisian nightclub or watching from the shadows with Montmartre in the background.

The pervasive Franglaise feel adds the customary whiff of exoticism and Tim Gane's recent soundtrack work on La Vie d'Artiste with Sean O'Hagan (which was previously posted at Elsewhere) has also discreetly filtered through in orchestrated pieces such as the charming title track and featherlight Fractal Dream.

And charm (not an attribute many will rate I have to concede) is everywhere here: the baroque stylings of the brass section, the whispery vocals; romantic strings; chipper rhythms and upbeat mood which eases towards Mediterranaean warmth . . .

This is more pleasant than pointed, and largely a mood piece of the kind you'd expect this band to create in their own studio outside Bordeaux over summer.

A bit on the bantamweight side of the ledger for my taste -- but then again it has been raining the past few days and I suspect this will sound much more appealing in the warmer days to come.

Seasonal music?


Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Primus: Green Naugahyde (Prawn/Southbound)

Primus: Green Naugahyde (Prawn/Southbound)

After almost a decade with no new material it's a surprise to find California indie-rockers Primus (who did the original theme to South Park) still around. But on this typically edgy, odd... > Read more

Grant Hart: Hot Wax (Fuse/Southbound)

Grant Hart: Hot Wax (Fuse/Southbound)

Because of the sporadic and sometimes wayward nature of his career after the break-up of Husker Du in '87, it was always going to be hard to predict what this album under their former... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . THE BEVIS FROND: Scuz me while we kiss this guy

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . THE BEVIS FROND: Scuz me while we kiss this guy

For a man with his name on almost 30 albums in the past three decades, you'd think the name Nick Saloman would be pretty well known. Okay, the albums all come under his band's name, but even... > Read more

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . EVERYDAY CHEMISTRY: The Beatles beamed in from beyond

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . EVERYDAY CHEMISTRY: The Beatles beamed in from beyond

The story began on a desert highway in California on September 9, 2009 – coincidentally the same day the Beatles reissued their remastered catalogue – and it involved a runaway dog,... > Read more