While he was alive, Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache refused to release studio or live recordings of his work, which is virtually unheard of for a major conductor. Following his death, his family recognized the demand for the conductor's work and took the decision to release some officially sanctioned live recordings through record label EMI Classics. His son Serge justified the decision in an essay that was printed in the liner notes to these early releases (my copy comes from a recording of Schumann's 3rd and 4th symphonies, with Celibidache leading the Munich Philharmonic, an orchestra that he worked with for decades). There is every reason to be cynical when reading the essay (i.e. there is every reason to assume they did it for the money, principles be damned) but I think he makes a number of well-reasoned and thought-provoking statements.
The main idea is that live concerts are meant to be enjoyed in the moment, as a symbiotic experience between the musicians, audience, and the venue. This experience is meant to be enjoyed once. On the other hand, a recording can never be music, much like a photo of a deceased relative represents only a memory of that person.
I thought about this essay a lot while listening to a stellar archive of Stereolab live material, covering their entire career including their recent reunion (1993-2019). The collection is easily accessible via the live music archive, Volume 1 appears here and can easily follow the links to hear all seven volumes. I saw Stereolab play live four times, spanning most of their peak (1994, 1996, 1998, 2001). As you'd expect from such a massive project, the sound quality of these recordings varies widely, but this rarely bothers me when it comes to collecting live recordings. For me, the draw of the concert recording was to have a memory of the show or tour, or to hear what the band sounds like in a different creative setting. Since gigs always outnumber studio recordings, this provides many more opportunities to do something creative, to fine tune the presentation of a song, and so on. Does it replicate the experience of being in the club, arena, or stadium? Of course not. But even though the information on the recording is incomplete, the missing information can be filled in based on my own experience. It's somewhat analogous to file or image compression, where the lost information can be partially reconstructed via algorithm during retrieval and playback. I can hear these recordings and attempt to place myself there, see the reactions of the band members, feel the sound blasting through the speakers and washing over me. Sometimes I prefer the grimy textures of audience recordings because they can capture the overpowering, muddy sound of many live venues, and give a better approximation of "being there" compared with cleaner soundboard recordings.
With Stereolab's studio recordings, I always preferred the early years covering 1991-1994, from the early singles collected on the first "Switched On" compilation, through "Mars Audiac Quintet". As a live band they peaked much later, but we'll get to that. In the early recordings (Volume 1), we hear a band with a clear vision of what they want to do, with a fully formed melting pot of sounds cribbed from their idols. Sometimes the playing is sloppy, the rhythms are not as taut as they should be, and the vocal harmonizing sounds woefully unpolished. But the drive and power stands out in all the recordings from the first series, which covers 1993-1994.
All successful and iconic bands come around at the perfect time, filling a specific niche with a sound and message that wouldn't have worked with a difference audience in a different era. To their fans in the early to mid-90's (and of course I include myself in this grouping), Stereolab were cool because they had a better record collection than you, and you were largely helpless to do anything about it. They namedropped Can, NEU, and other 70's Krautrock bands when they were virtually unknown quantities to most indie music fans. Their music was unavailable unless you were lucky enough to get your hands on a bootleg CD pressing. They talked about obscure French and Brazilian pop that seemed beguiling, exotic, and oh so mysterious -- and by the way, you had no hope of getting your hands on most of it.
Their timing was perfect. In the late 80's, nobody would have cared about anything so far out of left field. But around 1990, the boomer grip on musical discourse was beginning to loosen. Rock music of the 50's and 60's had been mined to death, collectors and hardcore fans were increasingly broadening their interests. They looked toward other decades for inspiration (particularly the 70's), and sought out non-American, non-British bands in genres other than rock. CD re-release and box set mania was at its peak, but plenty of great music remained unavailable on CD. You had to be a vinyl collector, world traveler, and have good connections to unearth many lost and underappreciated treasures. Stereolab and their influences arrived as a package deal. They spoke about them constantly in interviews and proudly boasted of borrowing from NEU, Esquivel, and so on. I bought the Can Anthology when it was released on CD in 1994, not only because I finally wanted to get my hands on music by this mythical German band but also based on Stereolab's indirect recommendation. If Stereolab sounded like this other music, then I wanted to have that music too.
By the latter half of the decade, things were different. The flood of compilations and re-releases throughout the decade meant that almost anyone with enough money and patience could assemble an uber-cool music collection. In 1999-2000, file sharing made the concept of a "lost" album nearly redundant. Almost anything, no matter how obscure, could be accessed and downloaded from your desktop in minutes. As for Stereolab, they were working with producers like John McEntire and Mouse on Mars, allowing them to reshape their sound in the studio. Suddenly, it felt like they were chasing trends, rather than leading them. The effortless cool that characterized their early records was slowly phased out. The recordings sounded more polished, but also more sterile. Fortunately, their evolution as a live band followed a different trajectory.
Volume 2 covers 1995-1996 and incorporates a wider palate of sounds thanks to the "Music For the Amorphous Body Study Center" and "ETK" albums. They could seamlessly vary from arty lounge pop to furious motorik improvisations. Epic versions of "Contact" and "Stomach Worm" are standouts. The latter song was recorded in Washington, but I saw an even more mind blowing version played as the encore in Toronto just ten days earlier. That show still stands out as one of the best three or so concerts I ever saw (shared credit goes to the opening band, Cornershop, who were very underrated as a live act IMO). I thought I was a near completist for this era, but this volume contains two songs I had never heard of before, "Young Lungs" and "Cadriopo". Stereolab could do no wrong during this era. They were never animated on stage, but as a fan watching them, playing this music in this way looked deliciously fun. The most precious find of all is a scorching version of "The Light That Will Cease To Fail" whose bursts of noise and drone gradually morph into, of all things, "Soup Groove #1", encompassing twenty seven preposterous, glorious minutes for the entire package.
Volume 3 is the least interesting. Electronic squiggles and odd noises appear everywhere and rarely mesh well with the music. Presumably they were trying to stay ahead of the curve and expand their sound palate. In principle, this could have provided almost limitless new directions for extended jams. But the chemistry between the new and traditional instruments (including the vintage ones) rarely appeared. Improvisational passages would check the contractually obligated boxes (since that's what the songs on the setlist mandated), even though there wasn't a cohesive idea about what to do with their time.
Volume 4 focuses on the "Cobra and Phases Group" period, which was a study in contrasts between the overly slick, plastic-sounding easy listening pop of the album and the muscular, propulsively rhythmic jazz-funk with which they were killing it during their concerts. After any long hiatus from this album, it's always entertaining to read the infamous 0/10 NME review from Johnny Cigarettes. The language is crude (to say the least) and the point belaboured to the point that it undermines the review, but the sentiment absolutely encapsulates the opinions of many at the time. Instead of borrowing sounds, transforming them, and owning them, Stereolab were now striking poses and hiding behind a wall of production sheen. And I say that as a fan of the album. One can't deny that it divided opinions at the time. On stage, things were simpler -- they rocked. The songs on the album erupted with infectious grooves that the studio versions lacked, and the early stuff ("French Disko", "Wow and Flutter", "The Seeming and the Meaning" sounded better than ever. They'd been playing these songs long enough to iron out all the rough edges from the early years. Stereolab were now a razor sharp, tightly synchronized unit, finally at a level that matched their motorik heroes.
In Volume 5, Stereolab reached their peak as a live act. Recorded in 2001-2 during the "Sound Dust" tours, this is the closest they ever got to replicating Can: metronomic drumming locked in a singular groove with the bass, rhythmic churning guitar becoming an additional percussion instrument, a perfect meshing of their two lead vocalists with the music. The songs on "Sound Dust" (arguably their most underrated album) are captivating, otherworldly pop and each one seems to shift gears halfway through, like an album full of "A Day In the Life"s. In concert, the band were completely up to the task of making these complex songs flow seamlessly from one extreme to another. They ditched the frivolous electronics and achieved perfect synchronization, could break into a soothing French lullaby just as easily as they could rock out on a furious extended jam. They never sounded this tight and professional, either before or since.
Volume 6 spans 2004-2008 and everything sounds the same, but different. The tragic death of Mary Hansen shook the band to its foundations. Her contributions were not replaced, for instance, in these recordings, many of her vocal parts on the older songs are simply missing. In addition, Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier ended their relationship around the same time. It's a minor miracle that Stereolab continued as a band at all. They remained a solid, professional live act but there was a spark missing. To my surprise, they found that spark in 2006 by touring the "Fab Four Suture" songs, which is an album I had never heard until hearing this live set. This is as raw and grimy as Stereolab can get, each song is infused with a post-punk like energy unlike anything they had done before. This material never entered into their regular live sets, and coupled with older rarities (e.g. "U.H.F. - MHP" from "The Groop Played Space Age Bachelor Pad Music", which was never played before this tour and hasn't been played since), it offers us a one-time alternative universe version of the band.
Volume 7 is dedicated to the 2019 reunion. They have slipped a tad, Laetitia Sadier's voice isn't quite what it used to be, and they play more tentatively. At this point in their career, they don't need to take risks, they simply need to present the best possible version of themselves to older fans and newer fans who never had a chance to see them. It doesn't detract from their legacy, but it doesn't add anything to it either.
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"The CD will slowly kill one's spontaneity, indeed, every time it is played, it reduces the opportunity to participate in the event. One hears the exact same development again and again, a fact which encourages a passive listening attitude"
I have written that the extended jams and improvisational moments are hit and miss, but the above quote reminds us that they were never meant for repeated home listening, they were spontaneous musical expressions meant to be enjoyed exclusively in the concert hall. In their proper context they were thrilling and rarely excessive. They were usually played at the end of a set packed with shorter, poppier songs. As counterweights to the bulk of their songs, these epic jams gave the band and audience a chance to zone out and get lost in the music. Even the Mouse On Mars/electronic squiggle era made sense in their late 90's context. These were musical experiments that were worth trying out.
Is this seven volume set a fair representation of Stereolab? I think so, although Serge Celibidache's quote gives me pause. The complete set totals 232 tracks and about twenty hours worth of music. The breadth of material is astonishing, covering dozens of deep cuts and miscellaneous tracks that weren't on their albums. Stereolab were famous for being a record collector's dream, releasing many limited edition EP's, standalone singles, and tour singles (i.e. music sold at the merch booth at their concerts and nowhere else) and this collection of live tracks manages to cover just about every niche and dark corner of their career. Sure, there are far too many versions of "Percolator", but who cares when there are so many other rare and wonderful tracks included. The sheer volume of great material, spread over a couple of decades of incredibly varied creativity, is enough to offset an alleged loss of spontaneity through overfamiliarity.
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