ARTIST

Stereolab

There's no arguing the charmed appeal of Stereolab's repetitive bliss. But neither the integration of the group's favorite bubblegum demonstration records and lounge esoterica, nor their phalanx of Moog and Farfisa keyboards can hide their wholesale theft of Neu!'s tranced-out Krautrock shtick from the 1970s. So what? Stereolab's unique identity lies in their ability to reconfigure "classic" musical exotica, as fashioned by guitarist Tim Gane. The results are analogous to chanteuse Laetitia Sadier's obsession with thrift shops: The band rummages through older, neglected musical goods and employs their discoveries in off-balance, semi-modernized mood music.

French-born Sadier met Gane, who grew up in East London, after a gig he was playing with left-wing rockers McCarthy in Paris. They fell in love and formed Stereolab in 1991. It's not unusual for Gane, who writes the music, to reference the Archies and John Cage, or the Beach Boys and Can, in the same song, and it's such seeming contradictions that enable Stereolab's hypnotic beat-drones to really take off. It's up to Sadier, she of "found" lyrics and breathless seductions, to float wonderful melodies over the surging chords. Peng! and Switched On, released in 1992, were fuzzed-out jewels driven by alluring drones and odd noise heaps, setting up Stereolab's deeper venture into electronics on Space Age Batchelor Pad Music.

The next disc, Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements, Stereolab's resourceful 1993 masterwork, and the almost equally satisfying Mars Audiac Quintet, are sweetly superb efforts. Emperor Tomato Ketchup, though less colorful, became the band's modest 1996 breakthrough. The fine Dots And Loops (1997) leans more towards suave lounge percolations, a bit of a detour. But as with all Stereolab releases, one constant remains: the music is always the same, but different.

Written by Tristram Lozaw