![]() ![]() In the beginning, people associated us with Lush because we had two female singers but when we started playing people stopped thinking that. Shoegaze and Britpop, in London anyway certainly had its origins there as that’s where most bands and fans gravitated to then. Laetitia and I went up there at least three or four nights a week for years. Lots of clubs and upstairs and downstairs of pubs where bands played. TG: We were at that time part of the North London music scene centred around Camden, Chalk Farm. We didn’t completely realise it at the time but the music scene was thriving, and there was so much good music to be enjoyed most nights! In our own particular way, we were a part of that. They made up all these feuds that didn’t exist to sell their shitty papers (though once upon a time much more respectful of the music and its capacity to influence and provide meaning and purpose to people in society, particularly the youth). (They didn’t come regularly enough actually!) Indeed there was some made-up scene the press had constructed, they called it Shoegaze which was a derogatory term at the time. There were lots of different bands that we felt close to each having their particular sound, from Th’Faith Healers to Gallon Drunk, Huggy Bear and Sun Carriage to all the American brothers and sisters who came by regularly such as Bikini Kill. LS: We had no problem inscribing ourselves in the London scene at the time. What was it like performing in that scene and was there a certain musical tribe that you felt most connected to? The band rose through a swathe of sounds in the nineties from shimmering shoegaze to the beginnings of Britpop. McCarthy, the group I was in immediately before Stereolab, was influenced directly by Dada in both the words of the music and our record sleeves which all came from that period. ![]() Soon after (around the age of 14/15), I discovered Throbbing Gristle who incorporated these kinds of elements (and much else besides) into something approaching an atomic explosion of ideas. It’s quick to re-assemble everyday images into hidden meanings and open up a whole new world of possibilities. Photomontage has the most direct affinity with the music I was into because of the whole punk and post-punk thing. As a (sort of/kind of) musician only, it’s sometimes hard to analyse how something from a different medium affects your ideas in another. ![]() Her collages bedazzled me long before I understood the wider meaning of Dada as a reaction to bourgeois society in general and the First World War. Tim Gane: My favourite Dada artist was Hannah Höch and in particular her photomontage work. So it made us ask that question, who is in charge? Technology was making huge breakthroughs. Those post-modern ways brought the artistic discourse to a whole new level which made us observe ourselves with a fresh set of eyes that could penetrate corners of the psyche that hadn’t been reached in that godless way before. Something needed to break free and they started chipping away at it unseen. But also the transgression of the straightjackets that a big part of humanity has either been made to wear or has worn on behalf of their ancestors without questioning its wider implications. Laetitia Sadier: I found the Dada movement inspiring as it echoed my desire for freedom. Why did you feel inspired by that movement to start songwriting? Now ahead of a headline show in London and their curation slot at Utrecht’s Le Guess Who? festival later this month, the two co-founders open up about Nineties tribes, new-age technology and their lifelong affinity with music.Ĭheri Amour: You mentioned previously that your early output was informed by Dada, an art form that championed artistic freedom as a direct reaction to World War I. Stereolab deftly crossed the line from indie to pop through to jazz and were one of the few groups in the Nineties as exploratory in their music-making as they were prolific in their output, releasing six studio albums across the decade alone (they’ve released 13 in total).Īfter a 10-year hiatus, the band reformed for live performances in 2019 to coincide with the remastered reissues of their albums released under Warp Records. Spurred on by their shared stage antics, Gane and Sadier continued their creative collaboration forming a new musical collective together. Helmed by longstanding members English songwriter and guitarist Tim Gane and French lyricist and vocalist Laetitia Sadier, Stereolab was born from the ashes of 80s indie pop band McCarthy after frontman Malcolm Eden called time on the band at the start of a new decade. ![]()
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