STEREOLAB

Not Music

[Drag City]

Sadly, this new release does not signal an end to Stereolab’s recently begun hiatus. The 13 songs on Not Music were recorded in 2007 alongside the 17 that made it onto the following year’s Chemical Chords. This new batch shares much in common with the first, while building on ideas the London collective has been cooking up since the early ’90s. As always, Stereolab makes music for situationist cocktail parties—soirees where everyone talks art and politics and speaks with the unintelligible coo of singer Laetitia Sadier. Tunes like “So Is  Cardboard Clouds” and “Everybody’s Weird Except Me” remain airy and accessible even as krautrock, free jazz, psychedelic rock and kitschy-cool bachelor-pad sounds mix like ingredients in a tiki cocktail. The 10-minute “Silver Sands” evolves from tense, Kraftwerk-style car-chase music to something resembling a slowed-down version of Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough.” Stereolab can’t disband—who else would try such things? –KP