Quantcast

Call for Feature Essays About Any Aspect of Popular Culture, Present or Past

Music
cover art

Stereolab

Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night

(Elektra)

Stereolab did almost the unthinkable—the band took a break. It’s been two years since Dots and Loops, but the hiatus has done nothing to warm up Stereolab’s ice-cool sound. The basic recipe is still loungey post-rock obsessed with sophisticated soundscapes, though Cobra and Phases has a much stronger free jazz feel than any of the previous recordings. Jim O’Rourke (known for his work with Faust, Oval and Sonic Youth) also joins Tortoise’s John McEntire behind the production board. The result is a collage mixing ‘60s jazz, French pop, ambient, and O’Rourke’s gorgeous string arrangements.


Cobra and Phases is not without its problems, however. Several of these songs feel too much like uncompleted thoughts—fragments with a couple of interesting ideas that aren’t fully developed. “Italian Shoes” is one of the prime perpetrators. The droning, ethereal singing of “da da de doms” over ambient sounds is far from compelling for the first two minutes, but once the tempo picks up half way through with a swarm of jazzy beats and blips, things start to improve. Cobra and Phases is rather like a good magazine with tantalizing pieces here and there rather than the great novel you can’t put down until you’re read every last word from cover to cover.

Rating:

Sarah Zupko is a former Executive Producer at Tribune Media Services, the media syndication arm of the Tribune Company, and a 10-year veteran of Tribune Company. Aside from writing novels and plays, she devotes most of her time and energy to running PopMatters.com and formerly PopCultures.com, as well as research in the fields of Slavic and German history, and general European cultural and intellectual history. Zupko studied musicology, film, and drama at the University of Chicago and media theory at the University of Texas, where she received her M.A. in 1995.


Tagged as: stereolab
Related Articles
15 Nov 2010
Not Music is one last reminder that music fans didn't always fully appreciate what they had in Stereolab until it was all over.
30 Sep 2010
The Stereolab and Monade veteran goes it alone with personal and involving results.
By Tyler Wilcox
12 Nov 2008
In concert, Stereolab’s songs really came alive, providing proof that the band remains one of the most reliable live acts around.
18 Aug 2008
Chemical Chords is a cute summer record, one that’s almost as easy to forget as it is to digest.
Comments
Now on PopMatters
A Painting Come to Life: 'The Mill & the Cross' (Short Ends and Leader) [Fri, 4:00 pm]
A Far Too Safe... and Strained... 'House' (Short Ends and Leader) [Fri, 9:00 am]
'Safe House' Is Ersatz Edgy (Reviews) [Fri, 8:06 am]
The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Film Adaptations of All Time (Short Ends and Leader) [Fri, 7:50 am]
  1. 'Nebraska': Bruce Springsteen's 'Heart of Darkness' (Columns)
  2. The 10 Greatest Shakespeare Film Adaptations of All Time (Short Ends and Leader)
  3. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 1: From 13Ghosts to Friendly Fires (Features)
  4. The Best Games of 2011 (Features)
  5. Not-So-Central Casting: Kevin Smith and the Birth of the Reality Podcast (Features)
  6. The 10 Greatest Movie Spies Ever (Short Ends and Leader)
  7. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 2: From the Go! Team to the Phoenix Foundation (Features)
  8. Slipped Discs 2011 - Part 3: From Real Estate to Youth Lagoon (Features)
  9. Lana Del Rey: Born to Die (Reviews)
  10. The Top 15 Madonna Singles of All Time (Sound Affects)
  11. Get Off of My Cloud!: 'Collecting' Music in the Digital Age (Features)
  12. Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas (Reviews)
  13. Google and the Production of Curiosity (Marginal Utility)
  14. Carole E. Barrowman’s Authorial Journey to Hollow Earth (Features)
  15. Tower Songs: Townes Van Zandt (Columns)
  16. Black Bananas: Rad Times Xpress IV (Reviews)
  17. “Don’t Let Me Fall”: Hip-Hop in the Age of Austerity (Features)
  18. The Gay Ole Countryside (Columns)
  19. Of Montreal: Paralytic Stalks (Reviews)
  20. Paul McCartney: Kisses on the Bottom (Reviews)
  21. Counterbalance No. 67: John Coltrane’s 'A Love Supreme' (Sound Affects)
  22. The 10 Best John Coltrane Solos (Sound Affects)
  23. A Look to the Past, An Insight Into the Present: The Use of Gender in 'Mad Men' (Features)
  24. A Tale of How Great Journalism Became Revisionist History: Grambling State U Football (Columns)
  25. Chairlift: Something (Reviews)
  26. The Asteroids Galaxy Tour - "Heart Attack" (Cosmic Kids Remix) (PopMatters Premiere) (Mixed Media)
  27. Mark Lanegan Band: Blues Funeral (Reviews)
  28. The Barbaric (and Poetic) Yawp of Shelby Lynne (Notes from the Road)
  29. After Cease to Exist: The Far-from-Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (Features)
  30. Mitt Romney Can Reside at Today's Proverbial 'Downton Abbey'... Newt Gingrich Cannot (Features)
PM Picks
Music Archive
Announcements

© 1999-2012 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.
PopMatters.com™ and PopMatters™ are trademarks
of PopMatters Media, Inc.

PopMatters is wholly independently owned and operated.
PopMatters is a member of BUZZMEDIA Music, MOG and Guardian Select.