Instant Holograms on Metal Film\u00a0(2025) is Anglo-French group Stereolab\u2019s first album in 15 years. The general political and social situation may have contributed to the alternative pop band\u2019s decision to end its long hiatus and record new songs. The new album responds, in part, to the resurgence of fascism, the revival of the Big Lie in politics and the expansion of war. At the same time, Stereolab seems to have picked up where they left off in 2010, which is not necessarily a good thing.<\/p>\n
Instant Holograms on Metal Film<\/p>\n
Stereolab was formed in London in 1990. Guitarist Tim Gane, one of the two founders, was born in Ilford, in East London, in 1964. During the austerity and social reaction overseen by Margaret Thatcher, he became a fan of punk rock and began making his first recordings. In 1985, Gane helped form the band McCarthy, which was ironically named for the anticommunist US Senator Joseph McCarthy and espoused leftist politics.<\/p>\n
Singer and lyricist L\u00e6titia Sadier, the other founder of Stereolab, was born in Vincennes, an eastern suburb of Paris, in May 1968. At the time, Paris was experiencing a student uprising that would escalate into a workers\u2019 general strike of millions. The Stalinist Communist Party finally betrayed it, thus rescuing the government of President Charles de Gaulle. In the aftermath of the sellout of the general strike, anti-Trotskyist and postmodernist thinkers like Cornelius Castoriadis and Guy Debord, among others, would hold sway among France\u2019s intellectuals and would, unfortunately, have an impact on Sadier. The latter met Gane when McCarthy played in Paris in 1988. Sadier sang on the band\u2019s final two albums and, when McCarthy broke up, she and Gane immediately formed Stereolab.<\/p>\n
The band quickly developed a unique style that eclectically combines lounge, bossa nova, krautrock (i.e., German bands of the 1970s such as Faust and Neu!), French pop of the 1960s and electronic music. They favor old synthesizers, electronic organs from the 1960s (such as the Italian-made Farfisa), drones and repetitive, Velvet Underground-inspired rhythms. The result sounds like a 1960s\u2019 view of the future. Sadier\u2019s usually abstract, cerebral lyrics alternate between English and French, and she sings them in an attractive but detached alto. Undergirding it all is an ironic, almost clinical, distance.<\/p>\n
Stereolab\u2019s notable albums include\u00a0Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements\u00a0(1993),\u00a0Emperor Tomato Ketchup\u00a0(1996), which is arguably their peak, and\u00a0Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night\u00a0(1999). The band went on hiatus in 2009 and released a collection of outtakes in 2010.<\/p>\n
On\u00a0Instant Holograms on Metal Film,\u00a0Sadier\u2019s clear, largely affectless singing remains a focal point. Several songs include the vocal counterpoint that has been a hallmark of the band. The arrangements include saxophone, trombone, marimba and vibraphone, which are relatively new additions for the band. These instruments, particularly the horns, bring welcome warmth and humor to the music. Many of the songs incorporate changes in tempo and arrangement, but their melodies are not always interesting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe numbing is not working anymore,\u201d Sadier sings on \u201cAerial Troubles.\u201d \u201cGreed is an unfillable hole.\u201d The song seems to suggest, correctly, that the world\u2019s historic levels of social inequality are untenable. Already abstract, the lyrics become stilted: \u201cThe juncture invites us to provide care \u2026 \/ While offering antenatal care for the inception \/ of the new yet undefined future \/ that holds the prospect for greater wisdom.\u201d Though the sentiment is positive, this is a bit chilly and unhelpful (and characteristic of Stereolab).\u00a0<\/p>\n