Label: Duophonic Ultra-High Frequency Disks Format: Limited 2CD,2CD
Stereolab have been known for their prolific releases on limited-run seven-inches, compilations and sundry other media – fortunately, they’ve also been very good at collecting their ephemera into neat bundles for those unable to find the original editions. Aluminum Tunes is Switched On Stereolab Volume 3, though quite why the extra name was needed isn’t clear.
The two CD package (with the option of a nice card gatefold in the limited version) contains virtually every non-album or unlimited single track released from 1994-1997, plus the whole of the Music From The Amorphous Body Study Center mini-album too. The only works missing are the Steven Stapleton collaborations, but maybe they’ll turn up again elsewhere one day – hopefully, what with Nurse With Wound releases being even more collectable than Stereolab’s.
The groop put out a lot of tracks in the pre-Dots And Loops era; recent rarities have been fewer on the ground, presumably due to the increase in remixes (and a child) Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier have been producing over the last year. Choice pieces are the motorik boogie of “Speedy Car” or “The Long Hair Of Death,” the remixes of “Metronomic Underground” by Wagon Christ and “Percolations” by John McEntire, and the aforementioned Ambient bubbles of the Amorphous selections. But the second CD has what maybe represents the classic image of Stereolab, in fuzzy, poppy covers of Herbie Mann‘s “One Note Samba” and the theme to Seventies gangster film Get Carter – opportunities for full-tilt loungecore vibes, Easy to the max and gloriously groovy.
-Antron S. Meister-
