'Chermical' Fidelity: Stereolab

THERE ARE FEW BANDS that "High Fidelity's" Rob Fleming can stand, and few more the snobby record store owner actually likes — so when the drone-pop group Stereolab was included in the 2000 film adaptation of Nick Hornby's cult classic as one of the "good ones," it was pretty high praise.

The nearly two-decade-old English band — led by singer Laetitia Sadier and guitarist Tim Gane — is back with a bubbly new CD, "Chemical Chords" and a new tour.

Express spoke to Gane about the recording process, what fans should expect from the tour and why Japanese editions of albums always have those pesky extra tracks.

» EXPRESS: It's been four years since "Margerine Eclipse" came out. Have you guys been working on the album the entire four years, and what was the recording process for that like?
» GANE: Basically, I started the album in the beginning of ideas in March 2007, and we finished it in December, just before Christmas. So that was kind of the period — a gestation of about nine months — and prior to that, I was working on a soundtrack [for the film "La Vie D'artiste"], which lasted right up until writing the album, and before that we did a tour, and before that we did a compilation ["Serene Velocity: A Stereolab Anthology"], and then before that we did two other compilation albums ["Fab Four Suture" and "Oscillons From the Anti-Sun"]. We've also done an album in an art gallery, a kind of tape-recording and cassette track. So we've been really busy — everything we did could be a like a box set.

[Recording "Chemical Chords"] was really like a conveyer belt, because I didn't have time to write any music before we booked the studio, so I just had time to make some kind of drum loops from samples. So we just went and recorded that, and then I went back to my apartment and I wrote a series of chords … and then we went back to the studio and superimposed the chords onto the rhythms to see how they could change them, and so we messed around with that for a while. And then we recorded all the chords and vibes and piano, and I went back to my apartment in Berlin and started to write the bass line and started to write the instrumental parts, went to record those; came back and recorded melodies, went to record those; and so on. It's a constant process of just juggling them, really. It was a lot of stuff, and it was like a conveyer belt of things going on, and bolting on things as they pass … and so it was a strange kind of industrial process.

We did about 32 tracks, and then we put the first half on the album. The second half has now been mixed and hasn't come out yet.

» EXPRESS: The Japanese edition of the album has two extra tracks, "The Nth Degree" and "Magne-Music." What do those tracks sound like? Why the choice to include them on the Japanese edition, not the other one?
» GANE: They were just two tracks that didn't make the album; I mean, some of the tracks, they're not necessarily bad, they just don't quite suit the album as a whole, or they may be very similar to something already on there.

In Japan, they always want extra tracks … and they twist your arm, basically, so you include them and they have to be their extra tracks. I think eventually the [two songs] will come out and be available as downloads. I'd like the tracks to be available everywhere — but it's one of those standbys in Japan that they'll always need extra tracks.

» EXPRESS: Your upcoming fall tour is only a month long, but it's pretty hardcore — there are shows every night, with a few extended dates at the Irving Plaza in New York and The Fillmore in San Francisco. Why the choice to push the schedule to the limit like that?
» GANE: The tour is about five weeks, and that's pretty typical — tours are always between five and six weeks. The first tour we did of the United States in 1993 was nine weeks, and we were doing in-stores and radio shows.

But just driving and not doing anything is also tiring. I'm perfectly happy to play a lot, and having three gigs at Irving Plaza is good, because you only need to sound-check once and then you can turn up at 8 p.m. at night. I like playing live; I like being on stage — not because I'm being looked at, I don't really like that, but doing the music and seeing what happens. That's the whole point of doing it.

» EXPRESS: What should audiences at the 9:30 Club show expect in terms of a setlist? Should they expect to hear newer stuff, older stuff? A mix of both?
» GANE: We'll have a mixed bag, half oldies, half newbies. Because, A) I don't want to play all new tracks, and B) I don't want to play all old tracks. We have [practiced] about 24, 25 songs, and 11 are new and whatever left over is old. We'll probably play around 18 songs a night, and there will be a healthy mix of new songs and bolstering old songs about it. The first two shows might be a bit fragile, but by the time we get to Washington, we should have it.

» EXPRESS: You guys are infamous for being namedropped in the film "High Fidelity." Have you guys seen it? What were your thoughts?
» GANE: I didn't know — we've also been in "Glamorama" [by Bret Easton Ellis] — but it was weird. I knew they had picked a track for the ["High Fidelity"] soundtrack, but I didn't know that it was coming up in the film; I got gobsmacked, like they say in England. I was surprised.

I've just done a film soundtrack [for "La Vie D'artiste"], and that was weird, going to a proper cinema in Paris [for the premiere]; it was a bit nerve-wracking, really. It's now or never: You're not listening to music in your studio or in a little room where you're editing. You don't really know how it's going to go — it could be awful, it could be, like, totally jarring or something; you have to sit with all these other people in a proper place, like a cinema ... the titles come up and you start to hear the music and it's freaky. I can't really explain it.

Occasionally we've had music in an advert or a TV series or to announce a football match coming up or something, and that's kinda weird, but nothing compared to a big film. It's very strange.

» EXPRESS: What should fans expect next: Are there any plans to begin recording a new album anytime soon?
» GANE: I don't know; we did do another LP — the LP that came out, ["Chemical Chords"] is half of the tracks of the session, so the other half will also come out at some point, probably around another tour, I suppose. But nothing is definite. And after that, I don't know — we'll probably be touring up until the next summer; I don't like to do anything unless it's planned beforehand. ... It's going to be at least another 15 tracks — plenty enough for everyone.

» 9:30 Club, 815 V Street NW; with Atlas Sound and Chessie, Tue., Sept. 30, 7:30 p.m., $20; 202-265-0930. (U Street-Cardozo)

Written by Express contributor Roxana Hadadi
Photo by Sabrina Tabuchi