I just finished listening to Broken Social Scene's "Beehives", and allow me to say, DAMN, that's gotta be the best stopgap before the next album odds-n-sods compilation I've ever heard. For those who prefer the straight ahead rock approach of "You Forgot It In People" and felt as though that album was a bit to the left of their rock centre, "Beehives" may be a bit boring for you. But if you like rock + ambient electronic in the style of Slowdive's "Pygmalion", get this record. It's also got a fantastic reworking of "Lover's Spit" with Feist on vocals, and with "Backyards", they've made a track that puts everything on Pluramon's "Dreams Top Rock" and Guitar's "Sunkissed" completely to shame.

I picked up Appliance's 2003 release, "Are You Earthed?", which begs the question "why can't Stereolab sound like this these days?". I missed the Toronto Stereolab gig while away in Germany, and heard good things about it from the friends who did go. Stereolab remain awesome live, but unfortunately their records aren't worth the effort to me anymore.

The Appliance album is 25 % quirky, 25 % motorik, 25 % science pop and electronic squiggles, and 25 % phat groovy beats yo.

The studio version of Stereolab is stuck in a rut of 55 % quirky, 7 % motorik, 32 % science pop and electronic squiggles, and 5 % phat groovy beats yo. However, live Stereolab, despite playing almost the same songs, are 20 % quirky, 30 % motorik, 10 % science pop and electronic squiggles, and 40 % phat groovy beats yo.