90年代オルタナ・シーンでも異彩の輝きを放ったポップス界の皇帝ステレオラブが本格再始動!!7タイトル再発キャンペーン第2弾!

90年代に結成され、クラウト・ロック、ポスト・パンク、ポップ・ミュージック、ラウンジ、ポスト・ロックなど、様々な音楽を網羅した幅広い音楽性でオルタナティブ・ミュージックを語るのに欠かせないバンドであるステレオラブ。10年ぶりに本格再始動した彼らが音楽史に燦然と輝くカタログ7タイトルのリイシュー・キャンペーンをスタート。第2弾は代表作『EMPEROR TOMATO KETCHUP』に加え、『DOTS AND LOOPS』、『COBRA ANDPHASES GROUP PLAY VOLTAGE IN THE MILKY NIGHT』の3タイトルが再発。今回もメンバーのティム・ゲインが監修を行い、電気グルーヴのマスタリングも手掛けるボー・コンドレンの手によってリマスタリングが施され、ボーナス音源には別バージョンやデモ音源が収録されている。

発売・販売元 提供資料 （2019/07/22）

Spin (11/99, p.194) - 6 out of 10 - "...Favoring un-easy listening over dance attack, this 75-minute-plus epic benfits from ruthless home listener editing: connect the dots, drop the loops." Entertainment Weekly (9/24/99, p.147) - "...cerebral free-jazz, odd time signatures, and lengthy ethereal drones. COBRA takes time to work its charm, but it's well worth the effort." - Rating: B+ Q (11/99, p.135) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...finds them diligently composing futuristic yet highly dated test tunes for 8-track cartridge players, tackling yesterday's technology today....lovely music..." Alternative Press (10/99, p.110) - 4 out of 5 - "...the band's jazziest album to date, with vibraphones taking a prominent role....few bands make sweetly psychadelic pop as enduring as they do." The Wire (1/00, p.67) - Included in Wire Magazine's "50 Records Of The Year ['99]" The Wire (10/99, pp.57-8) - "...the Stereolab formula gets taken further with a syncopated makeover that goes for breezy Latin insouciance and a poised clarity of tone....cool, casual and collected to the last." Mojo (Publisher) (10/99, p.96) - "...There's a lot of music on COBRA....Some of it is flutteringly pretty, and some of it...confirms that Stereolab are inching ever closer to the sound of Camberwell cronies The High Llamas....It's all perfectly cool and groovy..."

Rovi

On Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Stereolab began to change the way they recorded their songs. Instead of building them out of locked grooves and briskly strummed guitars, they pieced songs together out of loops, added parts and instruments as they went, and drifted away from motorik avant-pop towards something freer and more musically expressive. Dots and Loops furthered the experiment, adding more jazz and electronics to the formula with the help of Mouse on Mars and John McEntire of Tortoise. When the group got together to record their next album after a short layoff, they decamped to a small studio in Brixton and the bands chief composer/tinkerer Tim Gane set about outfitting it with the gear they needed. Along with McEntire, Jim ORourke was brought in to co-produce what became Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night. Stereolab and the crack creative team (which also included stalwart Sean OHagan of High Llamas) build on the changes of the previous two albums in interesting and satisfying ways. They go on sonic journeys that spiral past the already far-out realms of Dots and Loops -- Blue Milk stretches and twists chords and sounds into an outer-space symphony of noise, on Fuses the band barely holds on as drums clatter, horns splat, and marimbas meander -- but they also refine their blend of jazz, exotica, and soft rock into bubbling, horn-driven pop thats compelling and challenging. The mix of the two Chicagoans avant-garde tendencies with OHagans classicism and the bands tightly wound playing makes for some dramatic moments on tracks like The Free Design, which sounds like ABBA played by Steely Dan and a late-60s jazz combo, or the rollicking Come and Play in the Milky Night, which has a driving, off-kilter rhythm thats overlaid with swooping organs and abrasive guitars. The showy production and sometimes busy arrangements might have been overbearing if they werent paired with typically memorable and melodically pleasing songs. Luckily, the album is full of the kind of hooky, sticky songs that Stereolab made their name on. People Do It All the Time is candy sweet on the surface and biting on the inside, Infinity Girl is a keyboard-heavy future baroque jam, and Strobo Acceleration jumps back in time for some fine motorik pop. No matter the sound or style, the vocal duo of Laetitia Sadier and Mary Hansen make the songs come to life. Their interplay is one of the main strengths of the band, and even on the most stylized tracks, their harmonies give the songs a warmly beating heart. On the quieter songs like Velvet Water, where the instruments step back and their voices come to the front, the effect is breathtaking. Hansen gets to take a rare lead on Puncture in the Radax Permutation, and its one of the albums many highlights. While it can be difficult at times, Cobra is Stereolab at their near best. It combines dense experimentation that engages the mind with lovely pop songs that pluck at the heartstrings. ~ Tim Sendra

Rovi

Stereolab took an unprecedented two years between 1997s Dots & Loops and 1999s Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night, as they tended to personal matters. For a band that churned out limited-edition singles and EPs, along with an annual album, between 1992 and 1997, complete silence was a complete change of pace, but they happened to pick a good time to go into seclusion. During those two years, Stereolabs brand of sophisticated, experimental post-rock didnt evolve too much, even as their peers, colleagues, and collaborators tried other things: Tortoise got jazzier with TNT, Jim ORourke got irresistibly lush and complex with Bad Timing and Eureka, while the High Llamas fleshed out Sean OHagans Beach Boys fetish with Lab highlights on Cold and Bouncy. With the exception of ORourke, who abandoned Gastr Del Sols minimalism for grandiosity, they all offered slight expansions of what they did before instead of making great progress. Since each Stereolab album has offered a significant progression from the next, it would have been fair to assume that when they returned with Cobra, it would have been a leap forward, especially since it was co-produced with Tortoises John McEntire and ORourke. Perhaps thats the reason that the album feels slightly disappointing. The group has absorbed McEntires jazz-fusion leanings -- Fuses kicks off the album in compelling, free-jazz style -- and the music continually bears ORourkes attention to detail, but it winds up sounding like OHagans increasing tendency of making music thats simply sound for sounds sake. Cobra may seem that way because its pacing is off, with the first half of the album filled with concise numbers that give way to the lengthy Blue Milk and Caleidoscopic Gaze toward the end; after those two set pieces, it snaps back into succinct mode for the final three songs. Throughout it all, Stereolabs trademarks remain in place, but theyre augmented by rhythms, harmonies, horn arrangements, dissonance, muted trumpets, and electric keyboards all out of jazz from the late 60s, whether its bossa nova or fusion. All fascinating in theory and often in practice, but Cobra still winds up being less than the sum of its parts. Maybe its because the longer pieces drift, instead of hypnotize or develop; maybe its because the songs sound like afterthoughts to the arrangements (a criticism leveled at Stereolab before but never really applicable until now); maybe its just because of the odd pace of the album. In any case, Cobra never hits its stride, even as it offers a few miniature masterpieces along the way. Perhaps the time off led to the slight lack of focus, since many moments of the album illustrate that Stereolab is as fascinating as ever. But as an album, Cobra is their first record since Transient Random Noise Bursts to not be fully realized. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Rovi