You Only Hate the Ones You Truly Love

by Alex V. Cook, Music Editor
first published: September, 2005

I'm guessing if I've put this much effort titrating and measuring my love/hate for them, I must really love them lest I wouldn't be obsessing about their status and popping their bra straps all the time.

Stereolab
Kyberneticka Babicka EP
(Too Pure/Duophonic)

One of the side effects of being a an Internet Authority and International Shaper of Tastes like myself is that, when you aren't fighting off groupies and cashing endorsement checks, you get a chance to really examine your likes and dislikes to a microscopic degree that pre-Internet navel gazing never anticipated. And if there is any band that inspires uber-introspection in me, its Stereolab. I have gone from proclaiming them the Future of Popular Music to being the defining example of style over substance; from being stuck in a redundant creative loop like their sleeping pill music, to being perpetual innovators, models for us all. I'm guessing if I've put this much effort titrating and measuring my love/hate for them, I must really love them lest I wouldn't be obsessing about their status and popping their bra straps all the time.

The latest release in their never ending feeder for collectors is a sparkling effervescent triad of 7"singles, combined under the a utilitarian auspice of Kyberneticka Babicka EP. This group is so prolific, I'm really waiting until they do a set of solo face albums ala KISS available at the front counter at IKEA. In fact IKEA might be the precise way to describe this group. As much as I want to say I need hard wood and antiques and age and grit, the clean lines and funny names soothe me to no end, and I have a IKEA couch, camouflaged by a tie dye slip cover in my music room at home, which adds just the right opium den atmosphere I'm looking for.

Anyway, back to the music. Single one is the two-parter "Kyberneticka Babicka 1 & 2" which speculatively, soundtracks an imaginary Parade of Technology in cartoon Red Square, where happy tanks and marching children tethering large balloons of cell phones and microwaves bring a smile to the knowing bearded fathers at the Kartoon Kremlin. It hits one one of flaw/talents of the 'Lab, in that they will take a good idea, and dig a mile long trench with it, soldiering on right through boredom until its a good idea again.

"Plastic Mile" and "I Was a Sunny Rainphase" are classic Stereolab in polished Europop mode, both these songs wiggling and droning and endlessly crescendo-ing into your heart, but behind door number three is the strongest single, where Stereolab plays to its collective strengths operating as a new New Order, like old New Order used before they imploded - strong, intelligent synth rock. "Interlock" utilizes one of the funkier grooves I've heard out of them, groovy enough to be in a James Bond film (when are they going to score a Bond film? They are the logical choice.) and the final number "Visionary Roadmaps" percolates like some kind of darkened frug, like when you look up from the coke tray and get a glimpse of your self in the bathroom mirror for one blank terrifying second, and then dart back out to the party to accept your oblivion in style, then transmutes into a psychedelic baroque piece they are so good at. I still think Stereolab is mostly ear candy, but we forget that when the explorers left Portugal or wherever, it was exotic flavors they sought. And Tim Gane and crew always bring back the good stuff when their ship comes in.

Alex V. Cook
Music Editor

Alex V. Cook listens to everything and writes about most of it. His latest book, the snappily titled Louisiana Saturday Night: Looking for a Good Time in South Louisiana's Juke Joints, Honky-Tonks, and Dance Halls is an odyssey from the backwoods bars and small-town dives to the swampside dance halls and converted clapboard barns of a Louisiana Saturday Night. Don't leave Heathrow without it. His first book Darkness Racket and Twang is available from SideCartel. The full effect can be had at alex v cook.com
about Alex V. Cook »»

FREE TICKETS for OUTSIDELEFT's QUIET NIGHT OUT
featuring RM FRANCIS, KERRY HADLEY-PRYCE, JAY LEWIS, WAYNE DEAN-RICHARDS and WOODENHAND»»

The Totally Random Read →

AFTERMATH
a group show from new West Midlands Arts Collective, AMASS
At the Asylum Art Gallery, Wolverhampton

AFTERMATH
Asylum Gallery, Wolverhampton May 12th - June 23rd
6-9pm
Asylum Art Gallery »»

the weekly guide to new releases

see it here every week →

10 clickable things

☉ Denim ☉ Why a portrait artist from Ireland started making comics about U.S. police brutality ☉ Warner Bros Prop Archive ☉ Hollyweed Sign ☉ What can elephants, birds, and flamenco players teach a neuroscientist-composer about music? ☉ BOYCOTT University Challenge ☉ Bruce's Beach. Reparations really, or what? (NYT) ☉ Drag Shows are banned ☉ QPR: Promotion push to relegation fight, 474,000 a week losses and a rescue mission ☉ How to talk like a Chelsea coach ☉

RECENT STORIES

Week in Los Angeles City of Death Music

We're hearing from... Swans, Def Leppard, Apache Rose, Jaz Coleman and Anne Dudley, TEKE::TEKE , African Head Charge, Mike Oldfield, Brian Krumm, Alibhe McDonagh with the RTE Concert Orchestra, Belle Scar, Pale Jay, Tinariwen, Tommy Drinkard, RVG, Teardrop Explodes, High Pulp, The Fierce and The Dead, Magnetic Skies, Ebi Soda, Ash Walker

Lost In Room

Outsideleft talks to original punk pioneer Mark Perry about the upcoming book on the early years of Alternative TV, hardback homicide, the curse of nostalgia, and Crass cufflinks.

In A Landscape

The continuing journey of Craven Faults

This House

Another downpayment from Wayne Dean-Richards' It's a Mad World But Funny

The Sunday Poet: Philip Larkin

Jay gets ready for the Spring Bank Holiday with a poetry reading

Outsideleft Week in Music: The Inner Space Sounds from Way Out!

We're hearing from... Inner Space Quartet, Kid brunswick, Erland Cooper, Suicide, Josienne Clarke, 3l3d3p, Seerr, Creep Show, Hannah Peel, Foo Fighters, Tanlines, The Holy Family, Little Dragon, Eduard Artemiev, Oleg Buloshkin, Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina, Alfred Schnittke, Squid, ABC, NOIR, Joe Perry & Henge

Songs of Solitude and Singularity

Josienne Clarke's remarkable songbook, revisited

It's Rock'n'Roll Suicide

Suicide's Way of Life

Many Happy Returns

ABC revisit their audacious pop masterpiece.

Things I Overheard at Cruel World 2023

Oh, the things you'll hear people talking about in Pasadena

Adventures in the archives

MUSIC
CULTURE
LIT
SCREENS
PRODUCT
SSH

RANDOM READS

Outsideleft Week in Music

We're hearing from Sons of Kemet, Snapped Ankles, Herp Albert, Joe Strummer, Working Men's Club, Esther Rose, The Joy Formidable, Wavves, Lil Nas X, Dinosaur Jr., Sean Grant, Elvis Costello and more...
April 2021

A Big Interview with Nick Soulsby

Nick Soulsby Week boots up with a massive, generous interview about his current book Swans: Sacrifice And Transcendence: The Oral History and everything else besides
November 2018

Outsideleft at SXSW - short film round-up

Lake is virtually in Texas, reporting back on the cinematic side of the SXSW festival
March 2022

Hear Evil, See Evil, Be Evil

Calexico, Neko Case and Carla Bozulich pave a primrose path from bliss to alt.country hell in their recent releases
April 2006

Know Your Product - Northern Wood's Flat Pack Bookstand

Northern Wood reinvigorate a tiny corner of your kitchen and give flat pack products a good name with their new bookstand
July 2011

Happy Shopper #15 - Pure Evil

Pure Evil, the prolific vampire rabbit loving graffiti artist has a one man show in London. He gives us his shopping list.
May 2007

All About and Contributors

HELP OUTSIDELEFT

Outsideleft exists on a precarious no budget budget. We are interested in hearing from deep and deeper pocket types willing to underwrite our cultural vulture activity. We're not so interested in plastering your product all over our stories, but something more subtle and dignified for all parties concerned. Contact us and let's talk. [HELP OUTSIDELEFT]

WRITE FOR OUTSIDELEFT

If Outsideleft had arms they would always be wide open and welcoming to new writers and new ideas. If you've got something to say, something a small dank corner of the world needs to know about, a poem to publish, a book review, a short story, if you love music or the arts or anything else, write something about it and send it along. Of course we don't have anything as conformist as a budget here. But we'd love to see what you can do. Write for Outsideleft, do. [SUBMISSIONS FORM HERE]

WRITERS thru' the Years

Agata Makiele, Alan Devey, Alan Rider, Alex V. Cook, Ancient Champion, Andy Allison, Annemiek, Belle Plankton, Bruce Bailey, Caiomhin Millar, Chantal, Cheiron Coelho, Chris Connolly, Christian Present, Damon Hayhurst, Dan Breen, David Hackney, Denni Boyd, Dirty Lillie, DJ Fuzzyfelt, Dr. Rich, Dr. Richard Bennett, Duncan Jones, Erin, Erin Pipes, Erin Scott, Gracey Babs, Graham Baker, Guilaine Arts, H.xx, Hamilton High, Henderson Downing, Holly Martins, J. Charreaux, Jay Lewis, Jaycentee, Jennifer Lynn, Jenny McCann, Jeremy Gluck, Jez Collins, Joe Ambrose, John Robinson, Julie O, Karl Morgan, Katherine Pargeter, Kelsey Osgood, Kevin McHugh, Lake, Lee Paul, Luke Skinner, Malcolm, Marek Pytel, Mark Piggott, Meave Haughey, Michelle Williams, Mike Fox, mindy strouse, Neil Campbell, Neil Scott, Ogglypoogly, OL House Writer, Pam, Paul Hawkins, Paul Quigley, Peter Williams, Pixie McMowat, Pixievic, Rene Williams, Rick Casson, Ronan Crinion, Ruby Lake, Ryan 'RJO' Stewart, Samantha Charles, Seth Sherwood, Shane O'Reilly, Sheridan Coyle, Sofia Ribeiro Willcox, Sophia Satchell-Baeza, Spanish Pantalones, Speedie John, Spencer Kansa, Steve McCarthy, The Conversation, Tim London, Tim Sparks, Toon Traveller, Wayne Dean-Richards, and founders, Alarcon & Lamontpaul