Switched On - Stereolab

Stereolab released two records almost simultaneously in 1992 - their “proper debut” Peng!, and a compilation of early singles they titled Switched On. While Peng! serves as a sprawling and almost languid introduction to the strange animal that is Stereolab, it’s Switched On that serves as a landmark record with it’s anthemic guitar driven songs that forged a manifesto for the group’s early ambitions and for post-rock in general.

It was the early nineties. Grunge ruled the airways, and the alternative underground rode waves of the ‘Shoegazers’ and the birth of ambient techno. Into this world stepped the ill fitting Stereolab. While their sound had the trappings of sonic indulgence like their contemporaries, Stereolab was clearly on a different journey. Armed with fuzzed out distorted guitars and droning analogue synthesizers, Stereolab drew inspiration from “krautrock” bands such as Faust, Neu!, and Can. But instead of adventuring deeper into the obscure and awkward depths of artrock and jazz odessies championed by these bands, Stereolab coupled their sonic experimentalism with more traditional songwriting, and created a hybrid.

There are two hallmarks of Stereolab’s early sound: the abstract flourishes of burbling outmoded analogue synthesizer technology; and the tight, deceptively simplistic lock groove created by the rhythm guitar chord structure that built the framework of the song. These two main compositional elements have to be seen in contrast to the musical genres both in the popular arena as well as the main currents of “alternative” music. The reductive “lock groove” of the guitar seemingly stood in contrast to the return to melodic pop songwriting that in the “grunge” movement took metal music to the masses. Similarly the stiff almost mechanical rhythm Stereolab exploited in their arrangements fought against the ethereal gauze-like guitar work of the “sheogazers”, where guitars transformed themselves into abstract washes of texture and sound. And even as Dr. Alex Patterson was starting our love affair with digital music, sampling, and the myriad possibilities of sequencers, the songs on Switched On seem to revel in their use of synthesizers picked from the trash heaps and pawn shops of the music industry.

But the Stereolab aesthetic was more than just a rebellious rejection of contemporary trends. From a formalist perspective, the lock-groove rhythm of each song creates a structured framework for the lilting vocal melodies and intertwined harmonies and counter melodies. Similarly this framework grounds the rich polyphonic synthesizer elements that layer themselves between the harmonic overtones of the ringing guitar chords, and provide a natural organic springboard for the vocals. The lock-groove approach serves a compositional purpose as well, where the guitar and droning synth washes create a backdrop that is both rich in texture but almost minimalist in its single chord, or same key, stretches of sound. The group uses these passages to slowly build intensity and subtle additions of texture while the vocals carry the simple melody of the song. But most remarkable in these songs are the points where Stereolab actually changes the chord, or the key. As the listener becomes accustomed to the locked repetitive sound and becomes more and more sensitized to the layers of sound and texture within that single key, the most simple chord or key change becomes a much more dramatic sensation for the listener, and compositionally propels the song.

To view these early Stereolab compositions as “minimalist,” is tempting; but too reductive. If anything, the borrowing of droning minimalist techniques and simplistic song structures is a strategic contrast to their championing of analogue sound and recordings. While the pro-analogue fervor of the late nineties was a bit of a retro-reactionary fad, it still held an important ontological or philosophical lesson for modern music. Even the champions of new digital music returned to this lesson as they learned to incorporate analogue samples and “real” instruments into music based on digital sequencers. The richness of analogue sound is singular and unique in texture as it is locked purely in the moment, in the NOW of the irreproducible chaos of human interaction with a sound making device. The just as the crackle and hiss of a needle riding a vinyl groove is dependant on the unique physical history of that specific record and that specific player, so too is the sound of a hollow body Gibson specific to the ambience of the room, the million variables of how it is strummed, and the proximity of the player to the amplifier and other feedback sources. Of course this is all a bit heady for describing some simple three chord pop songs, but the songs are built to showcase this concept. By foregrounding their choice of outmoded instruments, and employing fuzzy analogue distortion over modern slick recording techniques, they introduce to the listener an aesthetic of savoring every bump, scratch and hiss of the sound, drawing the listener deeper into a sonic textural experience than could ever be described as minimalist.

On this sonic backdrop, Stereolab creates a lyrical approach to modern music that is revolutionary as well. Like any “alternative” or “indie” band, their lyrics embody a rejection of sorts of the dominant strains of culture and a championing of an alternate way of life. In Stereolab’s case many critics have noted previously, that this rejection takes the form of an almost pseudo-marxist critique of modern capitalism. For example the classic line “Everything remains to be done to devastate the ideals of family, state and religion” (Au Grand Jour). However in the same song, their lyrical content also contains a post-structural critique of western logic and philosophy with proclamations such as “We need a shake and therefore demand more than the cold conclusions of reason / The only impossible thing is to limit the possible”. Throughout Switched On, the lyrics return again and again to the idea that the foundations of the real, whether social, economic, or psychological are insufficient. The refrain of Super Electric repeats over and over: “Some never see the bones at all / Some never see the flesh at all…” almost as if the answer to the human condition is neither the forest, nor the trees; but something else entirely. But while the lyrics offer us catchy mantras to chant our dissatisfaction with the real, Stereolab never offers us a solution, or maps a way into some great beyond. Instead they suggest that the answer lies only in revolution as a beginning: “Confrontations clearing the way / Will be opening / Not as end in itself / But as a beginning” (The Way Will Be Opening).

It’s tempting to leave my analysis here, and I wonder if Stereolab would do it that way themselves. Instead of spelling out conclusions, shake foundations as the first step in a larger undefined, and unscripted adventure. And truly the concept of shaking foundations is a fitting metaphor for this, their early sound. I think clearly of the locked groove distorted rhythm guitar grinding out a rhythm to the vocal that lilts over the storm chanting a simple rejection of the real, and can picture Tim Gane’s head rocking back and forth to his own internal time clock as if the rhythm of his guitar were a correlate to beating his head against the walls of reality, methodically pushing to break through to some other side.

In a poetically suggestive way, the lyrical content and the formalism of the music come together here to provide a real foundation for Stereolab’s ouerve, and for post-rock in general. This is a pretty big leap for me to make, and I’m certain that the artists would object to my reducing their lofty idealism to a pigeon holed musical genre. But like post-modernism, post-rock is still ill defined and raising itself from the ashes, so it bears talking through. If we continue the parallel between post-modernism and post-rock we accept the stylistic description that it is an art form that borrows elements from previous genres, but combines them in pursuit of a completely new aesthetic. I think this description applies to Switched On. With a foot in many different musical camps, Stereolab set out on this record towards uncharted waters. They wore their influences on their sleeves, they wallowed in the sonic indulgences of the past; but somehow the combination of elements pushed their music, and the listener on to something different. “Not as an end in itself / But as a beginning.”