Stereolab - Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
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Category: Music CD
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CD Details
Artist: StereolabEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1999-09-21
Music Label: Elektra / Wea
Soundtracks:
- Fuses
- People Do It All The Time
- The Free Design
- Blips Drips And Strips
- Italian Shoes Continuum
- Infinity Girl
- The Spiracles
- Op Hop Detonation
- Puncture In The Radax Permutation
- Velvet Water
- Blue Milk
- Caleidoscopic Gaze
- Strobo Acceleration
- The Emergency Kisses
- Come And Play In The Milky Night
Music reviews of Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
Music Review: Cobra & Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
Rating: 2 Stars
As the 1990s drew to a close, so did Stereolab's ability to sound fresh, vital, and relevant. By this point in their career, the "groop" could play their particular brand of space age lounge-pop in their sleep. And indeed, Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night found them going through the motions like never before, and still ranks as the worst record in their incredibly extensive catalogue. Properly speaking, nothing had changed. All of the elements were slotted into their expected places--every droning Farfisa organ, every vibraphone hit, every "ba-ba-ba" vocal tic and harmonized verse by Laetitia Sadier and backup singer Mary Hansen. Abetted by Jim O'Rourke and John McEntire's aloof and thoroughly boring production, Stereolab effectively turned the music that had once galvanized the college rock underground with early classics like "Jenny Ondioline" and "Ping Pong" into predictable pop pabulum.
Cobra and Phases Group also coincided with the obsolescence (if not the outright death) of the `90s Exotica movement, led by Mexican easy listening composer Juan Garc?a Esquivel, Stereolab's major influence. (In a sad and poignant turn of events, the aging Esquivel would die only three years later.) But if the record justifiably represents Stereolab's lowest descent into lifelessness, it also stands as the clear dividing line between their early- and late-career successes. Perhaps it took a blatantly autopilot album and the critical backlash that followed it to jolt the group out of their holding pattern. Even after Hansen was killed in a tragic biking accident in 2002, Stereolab would continue to recharge their batteries and produce the excellent Margarine Eclipse and last year's fine Chemical Chords, which didn't alter their formula so much as suffuse it with new, vivifying force. We all make mistakes, and the once do-no-wrong Stereolab wasn't an exception. It's what we do about those mistakes that really matters.
Description of Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night
Like Sonic Youth and the Beastie Boys, Stereolab have always acted as cultural ambassadors (enthusiastically turning folks on to neglected artists and sounds) as much as a band of their own. On this gorgeous disc the group spice up their sonic soup with jazz, creating complex songs that are spot-on terrific and remind the listener of no other band in the world. --Mike McGonigalOn this bemusingly titled album, Stereolab toss around small chunks of music as catchy and irresistable as anything they've ever recorded. The warm Moog synth that leads off "Infinity Girl" or the horns that burst out of Laetitia Sadier's dry, layered voice in "The Free Design" will significantly boost your serotonin levels. The deconstructions these sonic scraps undergo and the analog keyboard textures around them are radically broad-minded, unveiling a separate and equally engaging architecture all their own. The ear follows one, then the other, first harmonically together, then suddenly cacophonous, all wrapped up in that familiar, '60s-a-go-go ambience. The scrupulous sensibilities of coproducers John McEntire and Jim O'Rourke are all over this record, incorporating the Chicago post-rock electronic sound and left-field musical influences at the heart of their work. Yet just when the song is sure to fall apart, Stereolab rediscovers the melody at the core. Take "Puncture in the Radax Permutation": a descending string melody mingles with a plunking xylophone-like pattern, the blend getting more and more abrasive. Suddenly the strings rise up with the drum track and a dreamy little tune reveals itself. It's not a record that's easy to get one's head around. Repeated listens, however, expose the diamonds in the rough, though the rough itself proves just as valuable. --Matthew Cooke
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