Some Satisfaction

Stereolab “Two Finger Symphony”

Late period Stereolab is sort of hard to judge. Most anyone would agree that the band has been in a creative decline, but they haven’t become stagnant — there has been a fair amount of experimentation, particularly in the Fab Four Suture period — and their baseline level of quality is admirable. The problem is that few songs from 2003 onward rise far above this baseline level. It’s all very listenable but little of it commands attention beyond noticing some intriguing musical hook that is nonetheless fairly forgettable. You know how food and beverages can be described as having a good “mouthfeel”? Pretty much anything Tim Gane composes will have a good “earfeel.” It’s always going to be a superficially pleasant experience, but you can’t count on the music being resonant or emotionally urgent.

Not Music, the latest and potentially final release by Stereolab, is culled from the same sessions that produced 2008’s Chemical Chords. The albums sound and feel almost identical. Gane’s tracks all have a jaunty, upbeat tone, and are built upon rhythms that draw heavily from ’60s soul. It’s a good twist on the familiar Stereolab sound, but too much of it comes out sounding too sterile and clinical to fully connect. In some cases, it is frustrating to hear so many good ideas in a song that does not totally snap together. Some x factor seems to be missing, but it’s hard to say what that could be. It could be a matter of some necessary tension being absent from the music, or the process that produces the music. In some interviews, Gane has talked about how the character of each Stereolab album is determined by his collaborators. With this in mind, I wonder if the x factor was personified by Mary Hansen, who was a core member of the group through the peak period in the ’90s and died in 2002, just before the band fell into a creative malaise. At the same time, the dissolution of Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier’s romantic relationship could possibly have something to do with the diminishing returns of their creative partnership. Who knows. It could just be a matter of passion and energy — the best Stereolab music comes from a place of anger and restlessness, some critical perspective on modern society. Their more recent material lacks that kind of intensity.

“Two Finger Symphony” is one of the best songs from the Chemical Chords/Not Music sessions, mainly because it has some sense of urgency and humanity to it. The beat is insistent, a choppy dun-dun-dun rhythm that cuts through the polite polish of latter day Gane productions. It’s perky and alert, but Laetitia’s vocal parts are simultaneously assertive and melancholy. As with many of their best songs, these subtle contrasts are what make the tune pop. It’s not just parts fitting together in a lovely way, it’s an expression of something complicated and adult and difficult to define. If the group return from their extended hiatus, I hope they can get back to working with these sort of tensions.

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