Stereolab

At long last, Switched On Vol. 4 is available to order here: https://stereolab.co.uk/

Update 1/19/21: Black vinyl and cd versions still available for pre-order. As to the others, well, you snooze you lose.

When I got the final mix and sequence of Mars Audiac Quintet at Elektra in the Spring of 1994 I walked a dub into CEO Bob Krasnow's corner office on the 17th floor of 75 Rock and Officially hand delivered him a copy of it on a DAT (Digital Audio Tape). That format represented the State-Of-The-Art in recording, a position it held for perhaps the shortest reign in the history of the medium.
Just over an hour later, the exact amount of time it would take to listen to the entire album, Ruth Rosenberg (Bob's career-long assistant) buzzed me on the intercom and hurriedly told me to come into Bob's office and to be hurriedly about. Apparently I wasn't hurriedly enough because just as I was snapping to attention, my doorway was suddenly filled with Kras' omnipotent omnipresence. It was like he was almost out of breath or something. I didn't even get a moment to ask him what was up. He simply blurted out:
"Terry this is a fukin HIT record! Every song on this album has a place in Pop history! We're gonna shoot a Million Dollar Bullet on Promoting every groove on this record!"
I started to cry on the inside and instinctively leaned in to hug on him.
He gently pushed me away and said:
"Make me another 50 copies by tomorrow!"
As he turned and speed on off back to his imminent domain.
Perhaps I should do some explaining about my emotional response to Kras' enthusiasm. See Stereolab and Elektras upper levels of management had gotten off to a misunderstood false-ish impression of what was really a simple case of mistaken identity.....could have happened to any old A&R person and/or any old rock Groop. So, for the sake of sparing you all the details, I'll only tell you about the time that it happened to us.
After I called Timothy, Laeticia, Mother Mary and Sir M.Pikey ( their manager. still is btw) to tell all of them all all about the Great News, that the legal teams on both sides of the Pond had come to a mutually beneficial and binding agreement and that Stereolab (#hereintoreferredtoas: "The Groop") would become the Second band that I would sign at the Elektra Entertainment Groop (#hereintoreferredtoas: "EE"). The Terms were VERY generous for our little Groop. Mainly because I was intimately involved in granting them whatever they and I could think up in conference calls from my office. The Groops barristers would then phone our crazy proposals to Elektras lawyers on the floor below me who would then call me in my office to me to ask if I was willing to accept our own demands or not.
Well guess what happened there.
The Groop was granted complete autonomy in the World outside of North America. They could record and release 45 and EP length material on their own Free Will. They could do it on any Independent label and in collaboration with any Indie artist that they so desired to do so with. Usually we, EE, would even pay for it, directly or indirectly. Anything more elaborate than that required formal approval by EE, which was always gonna be ME, with a capital "ME". I can't ever remember saying "no" to any of our schemes. See, I told you it was Great News. Nobody ever fukin believes me. Ask any body in said Groop. They'll all tell all of You that this is all True.
After our self-congratulatory Press Release, I got up from my desk and promptly passed out the two boxes of "Peng" CD's I had bought on my Elektra Amex card just for this occasion. Like a box of cigars from a proud parent I went about pollinating "Peng!" to everyone at the label that would come to matter in NYC and L.A. I took it all they way and hastily penned a Bio for The Groop that I'd written inside of a Birthday Card for this very Brady special occasion.
Two days later I was called into CEO Bob Krasnow's Korner office. Along with him there was the Head of Legal Affairs, Lord Gary Casson and the President of EE's owned and operated Nonesuch Records, Mr. Bob Hurowitz as well as Elektra Entertainment V.P. of Operations, David Bither. So into here I saunter, all glowing and smiling and figuring I was going to get myself a big old Major Label pat on the back for a job well done. I mean, I had blown every other major label in the building out of the fukin water! HA! Nobody even knew that I was interested in The 'Lab outside of a few key people at Elektra. However, as Krasnow got up from his desk and closed the door to his office behind me, the mood suddenly turned glum, the atmosphere distinctively gloomy, gauzy with an obfuscated game plan....
"Terry"
Krasnow said thru that surprising silence.
"We've all had an intense listen to this Stereolab CD (Peng) you passed out. I don't want you to fault yourself here. It was really my responsibility to have vetted this band BEFORE we committed to you and them. Terry, we just don't hear what you hear in this band. This is far more experimental and artistic than we feel this label can get behind. Behind on every level. I'm shooting Million Dollar Bullets here, Terry. Every time I pull a trigger in taking a new group to the public, it costs us roughly a $1,000,000 at the end of the day between pressing and promotions and the inherent operating expenses. We just don't hear it with this band. I mean, "John Cage Bubblegum"?? Great title. I love John Cage. We've put out some of his records on boutique labels. That's one of the reasons that we've got Nonesuch".
That's when the CEO of Nonesuch, Bob Hurowitz chimed in:
"Terry, I love this album. I want to work with you and them in releasing their records. The public will accept this level of artistic challenge coming from Nonesuch. The general buying public will simply be bewildered by this kind of material being released on a major legacy label like Elektra. They'll just get lost in the mix and then get dropped after their second album sells worse than their first".
Now, My Dear Readers, these guys are industry heavyweights here that I'm typing about. Their learned opinions are NOT to be dismissed or scoffed at. And plus also too, they control all the money, all the contracts, all the priorities and all of our (ME and The Groops) futures at this point.
But needless to say, I was fukin shocked. This was the LAST eventuality I was expecting, I mean, I wasn't even expecting it. I hadn't even entertained the thought of expecting it. Like I just said, I floated in there on Cloud Fukin Nine, man.
Now they were all looking at me like,
"Now be a good team mate and rollover, Terry. Your idealism is the only thing standing in the way right now"
....well that's how I felt at that moment anyway.
See, I've had some very, very dark, difficult and deeply challenging episodes throughout my Life. Yeah, sure occasionally self-inflicted and primarily as a direct result of that very same stubborn idealism of mine.
I felt backed into a corner. I was ready to quit, right there and right then, mainly because they had backed me into this corner. I mean, obviously the four of them had already discussed this among themselves and had already come to a decision. Assessing that infuriated me even more so but I also knew that this was NOT the time to display even a twinge of anger.
I'm not going to recount every statement that I made, mainly because I detest quoting myself. Suffice it to say that I had my assistant , Toni Preziosi, bring me my copy of the bands brand new "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music" CDEP. I cued it up to specifically show them that, YES, The Groop DOES do Pop Music and that they do it like no one else has ever done it of before. As we were all listening in, I reminded Krasnow of why I chose to come to work at Elektra over the other labels that were offering me A&R positions after the collapse of Rough Trade. I reminded them of why they hired me, the first new A&R hiring done by Elektra in 12 years! I brought up Krasnows early, consummate, nearly career-suicidal support for Captain Beefheart. I reminded him to remember how even when one record label after another was dropping Beefheart as fast as they signed him, that Bob had mortgaged his own fukin house so he could start Blue Thumb Records and pay for the recording of the Magic Band's "Safe As Milk" album on his and Beefheart's own terms.
"And you had just become a first time Father too, Bob"
By the time "We Are Not Adult Oriented" had ended I had them convinced of The Groops ultimate fighting Greatness! Krasnow REALLY took an interest in Stereolab after that day. Although he always talked Luna up as the more obvious commercial success, he also always went out of his way to prod me about what The Groop were up too. I made sure that he got copies of everything, and in every format. He even had a turntable restored to his office sound system just so he could play The Groop's independent vinyl releases.
One thing he didn't like was when we wanted to use old Elektra Records logos from 1960's and 70's.
"What, Terry? Why? Do you know that I spent 250,000 fukin dollars on our new logo?"
I asked him if he could still get his money back.
He threw me outta his office, an act which I decided to interpret as a tacit "Yes" to using an old logo, just this one time....
Kras bathed in the warm, critical afterglow after we released. "Transient Random Noise Bursts With Announcements"
So My Dear Readers, that's just ONE battle that I, A&R Person, fought for my bands. All of my bands, All of the time. All had their own unique battles to be fought.
I knew I was doing a good job when stuff like this kind of internal politicking never made it back to my bands.
I really believed in taking my Artists as far from the responsibilities and restrictions of straight Life as I possibly could.
How can you be at your creative peak if you're worried about weather or not you can pay your rent that month?
I concentrated on this aspect because I could do something about that.
With money.
In my job.
The Enabler-In-Chief

That's great news!
In 2019 are announced respectively the return to live concerts and the reissues of the albums from 1993 to 2004.
Here's the press release:
"Stereolab will undertake an extensive reissue campaign covering albums from 1993’s Transient Random Noise-Bursts With Announcements through to 2004’s Margerine Eclipse. All 7 albums will be reissued throughout 2019. Keep ‘em peeled for news of the live return of Stereolab"

I first heard of Stereolab several years ago, when MTV2 broadcasted a series of videos from bands that were featured by John Peel. There I've seen the video of "Ping Pong", which, for some reason, I remember more fondly than other videos. I also considered it back then "strange", although when I picked up Mars Audiac Quintet, the song didn't attracted me so much. But now I know there's one reason why it had to persist in my memory.

These years I haven't forgot of Stereolab, but I just didn't thought they could have a chance to stick out in my trippy-hoppy tastes... But they were a treasure I was to reveal only in the past few months - maybe not months, actually just weeks. Slowly, it became one of my favorite bands. Only when I heard Chemical Chords, though, I realised that I like this band. Until then, I've listened to "Dots and Loops" and few other albums, but almost none left me a strong impression. But even though, come to think of it, Chemical Chords maybe isn't as great as I pictured it, it arrived just at the right time, when my life needed a change. Music and poetry are still basically my life, but I needed to switch. No more sadness for the sake of sadness, no more embarassingly pessimistic views... So my approach needed a lot more positive energy. This is where Stereolab came in. I needed something with a lot of positive energy, that would however not scrape altogether the avant-garde/surrealistic/artsy/whatever side of things. And this is exactly what Stereolab offered me. "Dots and Loops", "Sound-Dust", "Cobra & Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night", "Chemical Chords" are all excellent albums that are as poppy as they are artsy, but probably the real highlight for me will be, after all, "Emperor Tomato Ketchup", which is not as polished as "Dots and Loops", but sounds cheerful rather than just mellow. "Sound-Dust" is great with all its sophistication as well, but I guess "Emperor Tomato Ketchup" is the most fun of them all. "Margerine Eclipse" and "Fab Four Suture" are still pretty hard for me to get into, but at least I like "Kyberneticka Babicka", which is quite annoying for most people... But I haven't listened to all the Switched On volumes, so I might have some surprises here as well.

Since my rant has come to an end: their music is fluffy and quite often kitschy in a Warhol way, but they should be appreciated at least just as much for their song titles (see: The Noise of Carpet, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Ulan Bator, The Flower Called Nowhere, Italian Shoes Continuum, Blue Milk, Neon Beanbag, Spool of Collusion, Forensic Itch, One Finger Symphony, We're Not Adult Oriented, Fried Monkey Eggs, Get a Shot of the Refrigerator, How To Play Your Internal Organs Overnight, Kyberneticka Babicka, International Colouring Contest, The Incredible He Woman, et caetera) Then, I could say how masterfully they manage to combine influences from seemingly contradictory genres such as krautrock and French pop, but who cares what genre this music is when it's so great... Quite certainly, one of the cult bands of postmodernism.

Mary Hansen, singer and guitarist for the experimental pop group Stereolab, died on Monday, 9th December 2002, after being struck by a car while riding her bicycle in London. The band's official statement reads: "The suddenness of her death has shocked the band. Mary was a special person. Our thoughts are with her family and friends who will miss her greatly."

Hansen, originally from near Brisbane, Australia, joined Stereolab in 1992 after the release of Peng!. She also contributed vocals to bands such as Moonshake and The Wolfhounds, and made appearances on releases by Mouse on Mars, Brokeback, and the High Llamas, whose Sean O'Hagan has been responsible for brass and string arrangements on many a Stereolab LP. Mary Hansen was 36.