A beginner's Guide to Stereolab

…inside you are the sun, the moon and also stars…

Forget everything you’ve heard or will hear over the next few months about Stereolab [stereolab.co.uk] as they release their first album in like, forever. If you’re of the opinion that there is something weirdly monotone about the vast canon of music they have released over the years, then here a brief list of a few surprising entries. For the uninitiated, Stereolab have to be one of the most prolific, label-hopping bands in the history of music. Their discography is extensive and baffling. Consider this a ‘way in’…

The Light That Will Cease To Fail — from the Super 45 EP, later released on Switched-on Volume 01 / (He Held The World In His Iron Grip) — a special treat at the end of the slightly arduous, Elektro from the Low Fi EP / The Seeming and the Meaning & K-Stars — from debut LP, Peng! / U.H.F. – M.F.P. — from The Groop Played Space Age Bachelor Pad Music EP / Lo Boob Oscilator — from the Lo Boob Oscilator Single, later released on Refried Ectoplasm (Switched On , Volume 2) / Les Yper-Sound — from Emperor Tomato Ketchup / Brakhage — from Dots and Loops / Outer Bongolia — from The First of the Microbe Hunters EP / Escape Pod (From The World Of Medical Observations) — from the Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night Bonus Disc / Munich Madness — from Aluminium Tunes (Switched On Volume 3) / Nothing to do with me (with lyrics taken from Chris Morris’s Jam) — from Sound-Dust

That’s enough to be going on with, huh. For die hard Stereolab fans, why not check out ‘Turn On’, an album of largely instrumental tracks produced as a side project with Sean O’Hagan. Oh, you have? Pardon moi.