The Null Device blog: CDs arrived today

First impressions of the 3 CDs which arrived in the mail today:

Stereolab - Instant 0 In The Universe. The groop are back in fine form; this album follows on from their earlier material, in classic Stereolab fashion. Lætitia appears to harmonise with herself on one track, which works. This is more the jaunty Stereolab than the experimental Stereolab. No huge departures, though the last track does go a bit disco-y towards the end. I rather like it.
Spearmint - My Missing Days - much like their earlier albums; spiky powerpop with Shirley's impassioned vocals. Some tracks have string arrangements; the songwriting is pretty good too.
The Pastels - The Last Great Wilderness Only 24 minutes long, and most of it is short instrumental themes, ostensibly for a Wicker Man-style film. There's one song with Katrina singing, and a "sleazy electropop" track featuring Jarvis Cocker, which seems, at least to me, a bit bland.

Posted by: Graham | http://grudnuk.com/ | Tue Oct 28 13:47:41 2003

Err, what's "earlier" wrt Stereolab? Doesn't matter, I'll pick it up anyway.

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Tue Oct 28 14:03:13 2003

About Emperor Tomato Ketchup onwards. It'd probably be most like The First of the Microbe Hunters or thereabouts.

Posted by: Graham | http://grudnuk.com/ | Tue Oct 28 14:05:58 2003

Ah right, because that's like "middle" period to me. Buy "Transient Random-Noise Bursts", you fool! :)

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Tue Oct 28 14:34:03 2003

I meant "earlier" in relation to Instant 0. And I've heard their early material (as it is on disc 1 of ABC Music, for one). To be honest I prefer their latter works.

Posted by: Graham | http://grudnuk.com/ | Wed Oct 29 07:59:08 2003

Some of their early material. There's only one track from Transient on ABC Music.

Posted by: acb | http://dev.null.org | Wed Oct 29 09:19:15 2003

Though there are tracks from Peng! and the like, no?

Posted by: Graham | http://grudnuk.com/ | Wed Oct 29 13:26:11 2003

Lessee... Only Peng!33's from Peng!, the first four on disc one are on Switched On, "Laissez Faire" is from that Lo-Fi EP, quite a few from Refried Ectoplasm, and a few, like "Heavy Denim", aren't on any of the readily-available albums, though Duophonic sometimes have the singles they come on in stock.

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