Stereolab Album: “Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements”

I bought this after reading an article in "Record Collector" (UK) in which it was described as a classic. As the group (groop!) sounded fascinating I took a chance on it. Well, now I've got all their albums, haven't I! This, however, is the one I'd keep if I could have only one. It's their most challenging and daring CD.

Since this album, slowly but surely, Tim Gane has become infatuated with Brazilian music (if I hear another song full of 'ba de daps' I'll probably throw up). Here, the drone aspects (Velvets and, apparently, Neu) were more dominant. 'Jenny Ondioline' is fantastic and my favourite Stereolab track.

The band has gone past this phase and will not return. That's fair enough. I've still got this CD, though, and they're not getting it back!

Oh, by the way, I saw them live recently and I think I'm in love with Laetitia Sadier!

This was Stereolab at its peak. A synthesis of sexy 60's pop culture noise, Neu-esque drone rock, and Jean Jacques Perrey's space age pop, with a 90's indie rock bend. This cd was my intro to stereolab in 1993 and it is their most memorable and rewarding in the end.

"Tone Burst" is a perfect example of a kind of cheeky 60's french pop thing with its droney vintage analog bleeps and Laetitia Sadier's sexy vocals gliding over the background in a manner that even touches upon "The Gift" by the VU. " Pack Yr Romantic mind" has that bossa thing going on for the first time in Stereolab's sound. "Im going out of my way" is an upbeat 60's rave up that ends with this cool experimental analog noise. "Jenny ondioline" is like a homage to NEU! clocking around 17 minutes of Sonic Youth-y, shoegazer-ish drone rock. If you can find it, there is a limited edition single for Jenny Ondioline that has a 3:51 edit of Jenny O and 3 rockin B-sides, most notably "French Disko", which later appeared in another version on Switched on Vol 2 on Drag City Records.

Any way you look at it this period of Sterolab was my favorite, and this cd is a great introduction to Sterolab's genius. It may even be the best, most consistent snapshot we'll ever see from Stereolab.

I heard this album on its release and was slow to take to it due to the fact it's a departure from the sunny moogy pop of their earliest stuff. I wondered at it, at the odd sleeve and at the spiky and angular sounds. To this day I still wonder at it but its allure grew and continues to grow. It is the one Stereolab album that could be called "noisy" which is a style they do so very well. Most striking are the changes in mood between tracks - "Golden Ball" is a dark, brooding nightmare and "Pack Yr Romantic Mind" is bright and breezy. "Analogue Rock" is pure krautrock-inspired genius and "Our Trinitone Blast" is - well, God knows what it is - an experiment, I suppose, but, like everything else on this disc, a very successful one. The album's centerpiece is, of course, the thrilling 18-plus minutes of "Jenny Ondioline" - less a song than a ride you will enjoy taking over and over and over as it pulses and surges along. They changed directions a couple of times after releasing this gem before settling on a jazzier and less noisy sound, which is of course disappointing, if only from the standpoint that the sound is more one-dimensional these days. On this, however, their major-label debut, they pushed in many directions, tried new and different things, and made a good old-fashioned racket for the one and only time. I continue to be awed by this disc; if only other bands could be as uncompromising and brilliant on their big label debuts!

This is my favorite stereolab album, 'Emporer Tomato Ketchup's a close second.

It's so energetic-- also you get a great feel for what they're like live. Because they tend to make concept albums, the raw visceral impact of their chemistry together is sometimes muted for the sake of aesthetics. Don't get them pegged for eggheads, though; they rock the mothereffing house down.

I've been to their live shows and watch out! They are as noisy as Sonic Youth with huge freakin amps pumping out distorted guitars and old analog synths stuttering out tunes that sound like construction work.

Jenny Ondioline on this album is the closest thing to that you're gonna find on a record.

The first track is excellent. 'Pack Yr Romantic Mind' is a sophisticated pop gem ala Jacques Brel.

If you like other Stereolab albums, or sort of psychedelic Britpop, give Stereolab some thought. They have that oldskool krautrock strain (have you ever heard Neu?) leavened with a dose of Spacemen3 psychedelica. They're excellent. :)

This album makes no sense... Squeals of guitar fighting against soothing pop melodies, revolutionary-socialist lyrics filtered through "bah-bah" backing vocals, long sections of drone-rawk fragmented by pure-pop bliss. The more time you spend trying to understand the strange animal known as "Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements," the more you will fall in love with it. One of the few indespensible albums released in the 1990's. P.S. If you don't believe in Paradise, just listen to the eighteen-minute epic, "Jenny Ondioline."