Stereolab were one of the most proficient and unique synergies of pop’s last 20 years, and if you’re reading this — if you’re interested in what vocalist Laetitia Sadier’s up to now — you may agree with we the ravenous that the world lost a truly great thing when they announced their hiatus. Most importantly, the true-blooded Stereolab fan (and I’m mistrustful of anyone who slings Emperor Tomato Ketchup into his or her personal canon and calls it a day/career) wouldn’t have seen the Groop’s final decade as any sort of a ‘decline.’ I’m more than partial to their earliest work, but if anything, they did nothing but hone: 2008’s swan song, Chemical Chords, was an exercise in inhabiting cyclical sets of crap-shoot triads until they were songs, colorful chords stacked like Duplos, pop music by induction. Stereolab never competed with or even seemed to exist in the same universe as their contemporaries (see: multiversal retro-futuristic aesthetic; Marxism) — they simply challenged themselves, track for track, to create music that could only be Stereolab.
Sadier’s voice was one of a slough of idiosyncrasies that made this task always sound like such a breeze. Hence the ravenous, insatiable fans: despite the band’s acting ingrained in a collaborative, progressive music culture, what Stereolab soundtracked was always realms apart, challenging yet weirdly background. They remain the coolest band ever, because it’s so bloody hard to tell if they’re cool or not. In this context, though we may desire ever more, there’s a lot about The Trip that’s unsettlingly intimate. That cover, a nostalgic bid for 90s-icon status if there ever were one, is the first to feature an actual performing band member’s image, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the whole album’s impetus was the death of Sadier’s younger sister. You hear this, spurred by the whole solo-name context, all over the album: a certain sadness, a certain wistfulness — even though, as always, it’s a tough sell upon less discerning ears to describe it as sounding like anything but Stereolab. Now would’ve been a great time for Sadier to overhaul her sonic instincts, cultivate some gripping noir-pop from the lounge model, but for better or worse The Trip will probably be remembered to fall on the languid end of the always-good spectrum of, yes, Stereolab albums.
The album’s handful of stellar songs are part of the problem, if you catch my drift: in proud tradition, it kicks off with its hands-down best tune, “One Million Year Trip.” The song revolves around an ascending organ line, straight out of symphonic prog’s heyday, but the real majesty of the song is how the organ’s climactic final note locks straight in step with a choppy bassline so propulsive — obstinate, I’m thinking of McNew — it couldn’t give a shit that the organ wasn’t finished yet. Musically and lyrically, Sadier’s tracing infinity symbols here, the Trip as a metaphor for one of the most over-metaphored themes in artistic history. She seems to have made a point of working without any former bandmates, but her two sets of rhythm sections (one of which includes the occasionally self-cannibalizing Richard Swift) still know exactly which gods to take cues from, as if they couldn’t imagine Sadier with anything less bouncy than her former band. This serves well on the more driving songs, but they’re scratching their heads when Laetitia waxes swoony. I’m sure, as Dorof’s mentioned, no one craves yet another listless “Summertime,” but Sadier’s performance of Wendy & Bonnie’s “By the Sea” is a classic ‘great record collection’ cover — not only breathing vigor into the original but staging possibly Sadier’s most affecting vocal line since “Anonymous Collective” jumped the octave, or at least the jazzy twists in “The Free Design.”
“By the Sea” is a curious sort of centerpiece, resolving the plaguing contradiction between emotional tug and momentum by deferring to other songwriters. The album also contains another cover, and three extremely brief interlude tracks (instrumental loops curiously quelled straight from the middle of “Natural Child”) and the whole record isn’t even 35 minutes. Suffice to say you won’t get that reeling sense, which used to accompany Stereolab’s generally overlong albums, that every possibility has been totally wrung into the album. That’s fine: it’s refreshing to want more when The Trip tapers off. The only problem is, it’s still Stereolab I want more of. Sadier’s given us a glimpse of her heretofore veiled identity — even when counterpoint-goddess Mary Hansen died in 2002, their lyrics remained cluttered with Academise — and even as I want more Stereolab, I want her stuff to succeed on its own terms. With The Trip, she’s split the difference, crafting a modestly arranged work that showcases a variety of strengths we already knew she had. But in the finger-snapping dusk of “Another Monster,” she confesses, “There is something very dark/ The shadow of which can’t be turned around.” I believe her; living in that shadow can’t be easy. But if anything, The Trip shows that it still deserves its own score.