Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited: Jet Sound Inc.

Lounge Lizards, Swingers, and Hipsters of the 21st century unite! We have found our soundtrack. The ultra-hip Swiss of Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited have given us Jet Sound Inc., a smarmy, yet brilliant, collection of 14 space-age lounge songs interspersed with the blips, bleeps, and buzzes of electronica. Think Esquivel kicking back with Laika in a shag-carpeted space capsule lit by countless lava lamps, sipping martinis and smoking Cubans as they whip around the earth. This would be the music coming from the stereo. A soundtrack to a Tarantino fuck-fest of ultra-violence and five dollar milkshakes. Afros, leisure suits, and Soylent Green for all!

I have to admit that when I volunteered to review this album I was under the impression that it was Stereophonics, the rock band. My misreading turned into a welcome surprise though. Jet Sound Inc. is completely instrumental, no pencil thin mustachioed sleaze ball warbling through a microphone. The album opens with “The Lizard”, a song that combines a lazy guitar pluck with a metallic sitar while three or more organs carry the melody, conjuring up images of galaxies framed by wood paneling. Interspersed throughout the song are electronic influences — a drum machine, an electric buzz, an electric pad of some sort.

The song “4th Gear Left Hand Corner” combines surf-rock with lounge organs. Yet, the electronics work their way back in — the Beach Boys if they were born on Neptune. “Snake Charmer” slithers back and forth (as the name implies), a lazy beat driving an electric mandolin melody, bongos banged here and there.

During the ’90s, pop culture decided to revamp swing music. The fad eventually burned out due to over-saturation. After all, how many times can one conceivably hear Brian Setzer and The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies without having an overload of irony? Lounge music, on the other hand, is so dependent upon its own kitsch that irony becomes honesty. Lounge music is kitschy, but it’s so wonderfully kitschy that it transcends pop irony and becomes autonomous. Lounge music creates its own world — a world of Manhattans, music that oozes sexuality, bachelor pads for both genders — and within this world recreates itself through each performance. Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited gives us a world without the depressing bits. In its place is a swingin’ spaceship, hurling through the galaxy, taking us to unknown, yet obviously hip, worlds on which to throw never ending parties and pour never-ending cocktails. Yeee-haww.