Customer Reviews

Mars Audiac Quintet

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was just given this as a gift to complete a hole in my Stereolab collection. I hit play on the CD player, my jaw hit the table and didn't shut until it was over. If you own an early album by this band (Switched On, Refried Ectoplasm, Transient Random, etc.) and are wondering which one to get next, this is it. If you own later stuff by the band, are wondering what the earlier stuff is like, and don't like too much grit in your pop, this is the one too. Gorgeous drones, lots of repetition, drums and guitars, bilingual lyrics, analog synth washes, this one has it all. Classic Stereolab. Don't wait six years to get this like I did.

When I first heard this album, I thought, "Oh, no, more organs, more repetition, same old drumbeat for every song, same old everything." However, a second listen is needed to fully appreciate this as a standalone album. With Peng! formerly being my favorite record by the groop, I was hoping to pick up Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements, their second album, but since there were none on the shelf, I settled for this, their third.

Mundane (or actually just poor) album art aside, this one started as a disappointment and quickly skyrocketed up to the top of my list. Unlike their other albums, this one relies much more heavily on melody than harmony, which later albums do not reflect. Like any Stereolab (Dots and Loops aside), it's different, but it's still the same sound. It's much lighter-hearted and less distorted than the work on Refried Ectoplasm, but comparitively Refried Ectoplasm is the closest thing to this out there.

My top five Stereolab songs:
1) John Cage Bubblegum (Refried Ectoplasm)
2) The Stars our Destination (Mars Audiac Quintet)
3) Jaunty Monty and the Bubbles of Silence (Instant 0 in the Universe EP)
4) Outer Accelerator (Mars Audiac Quintet)
5) Perversion (Peng!)

And thus, this is the one that I deem Stereolab's best. Introduce yourself to Stereolab with it or pick it up to fatten up your collection. Either way, this is a solid and 100% stellar album.

This album, now ten years old, seems more relevant today than ever before, in our world of increasingly corrupt politicians and perverted concepts of "morality."

To get a sense of Stereolab's sound, combine 70's German Krautrock (Neu!, Can, Faust, et al), Velvet Underground, Beach Boys backing vocals, bassanova and samba, space age bachelor pad music inventiveness, Pavement, Suicide, Mouse on Mars meets Tortoise; vintage instruments like farfisa, harmonium, moog, mellotron, vox organ, theremin; Nietsche, Marx and other communist ideas, French literature such as Baudelaire; an occasional pinch of goddess-based leanings; space exploration; and much much more. There is a lot in the mix, and they have never had qualms about blatantly ripping off obscure songs and literature, but they make it all so smooth and palatable and dreamy that it is just too irresistable. Their bag of goodies never seems to run out of vintage ideas from below the surface, and they have become trendsetters for this.

Mars Audiac Quintet, the groop's third full-length, is the album which earned them the rank of the "Moog Terrorists". There are so many delicious layers of organs here! (just listen to track one and feel the 'Three-Dee Melodie'.) Some songs here build up long drones to illustrate a sociopolitical point that we've become too accustomed to not paying attention to our leaders' misuse of power ('Transona Five', 'Anamorphose', 'New Orthophony') while some are pop songs illuminating the same complacency. 'Ping Pong', a title suggesting both a back and forth action and a passive observation from the sidelines, is one of the band's the catchiest pop numbers. As for the lyrics:
"There's only millions that lose their jobs and homes and sometimes accents. There's only millions that die in their bloody wars, it's alright. It's only their lives and the lives of their next of kin that they are losing... Don't worry, be happy, things will get better naturally. Don't worry, shut up, sit down, go with it and be happy." (The 'Don't worry' part is all a sarcastic yet ironic summary of what the public majority actually is doing in the face of denial of social decline.) These sentiments are echoed in 'Outer Accelerator': "In whatever society, there continually will seem to be just a few men keen to rule, overwhelming the majority. We'll assent and allow them to do so." 'Nihilist Assault Troop' deals with our so-called "morality".

As one friend once put it, Tim Gane's drone-pop and Laetitia Sadier's marxist revolutionary lyrics clash in a decidely political irony. While the message is sometimes hidden in lulling drones, sometimes wrapped up in kitschy pop, if you listen closely you will hear them call on you--to wake up and face the music of what is going on.

(Incidentally, about 1/3 of the songs are sung in French; singer/writer Laetitia Sadier is from Paris.)

I have yet to hear a bad album from Stereolab. This is among their best. Chicks dig it. Your friends will love you for it. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it. The only thing better is seeing them live. This isn't recent Stereolab, though, which is cleaner and more bassy. This stuff is pretty raw in comparison, with live drums, bass and guitar, and with layer upon layer of distorted, fuzzed-out Moog synthesizer, and then Latitia Saedler's (sp?) smart voice coming through the mix with some wonderful harmonies and such. Saedler is renowned for her philosophical lyrics, which on this album team up with the music like no other Stereolab album. Awesome!

I've long been a fan of Stereolab and own most of their full-length albums. But time and again, for me, "Mars Audiac Quintet" stands tall as their most cohesive, exciting, listenable work.

Whereas their later albums often dip into loungey, vibe-heavy pop territory and their earlier work frequently sinks into screeching passages of pure noise that can tax some listeners, "Mars Audiac" remains Stereolab at their "purest," which is to say, if you've ever been lucky enough to catch them in concert (which I highly recommend), then the energy of this tight, jammy CD is the closest you'll come to duplicating the trance-like experience of seeing them live.

For those just starting out with their Stereolab explorations, this is a fine, fine CD to begin your journey with.

Their earlier CD, 'Peng' comes close and I like 'Margerine Eclipse,' but this is their 1994 CD that I keep listening to. There are some glisteningly perfect "pop tunes" like Ping Pong, and highly melodic spacey tracks like Wow and Flutter and Three-Dee Melodie. The singing is great. It sounds like the band had really hit their groove by this point.

...and my heart does the rest. Here's a scenario; Take this one camping with you, and lay it on some unwary friends. You'll be drinking beer, playing cards, and mouthing the same old, tepid, and flat verbal backwash at one another. Then suddenly, where there was only just noise and filler, the machine begins to emit a beautiful noise no one has ever heard it make before. An hour or so later, when the audio bliss winds down and grows silent, so will your friends. Because everything that was being talked about before (ever), seems pointless, banal, and finite. THERE YOU GO! You've all just evolved. How does that feel? Have another beer, and relinquish the cd player to your Lynyrd Skynyrd enthusiast friend. >SIGH< no one understands you.

As a whole, this is Stereolab's best album. I can't recommend it highly enough. Every song on "Mars Audiac Quintet" fits together snugly, creating a beutiful, peace-inducing aural experience.

I'd recommend lying down, closing your eyes, and letting it wash over you. It will evoke fuzzy saffron feelings of nostalgia. At least, it always does for me.

A long time ago, I had a really crappy cassette player (remember cassettes?) And my tape of Mars Audiac Quintet was stuck in the tape player, for months. Seriously. The only thing I listened to in the car was this album (Or in this case tape). It got to be a joke, and people would start laughing when they were in my car, and they heard Stereolab AGAIN. But after, literally, months of listening to this recording I think I learned every subtle nuance of this great album. (Perfect driving music!)

This cd, more than any onther, bridges the gap between their early, more rocking, krautrock-influenced sound, and their later space-lounge-pop sound (Which would really start with their next release, Emperor Tomato Ketchup.) This cd still has the loud guitars, overdriven keyboards, repetition, and experimentation that defines their early sound. Unlike some of their early releases, the recording and production are definitely hi-fi, and the recording sounds crystal clear. (This is a great audiophile record!)
They were able to merge the sounds of krautrock (i.e. Can, Faust, and especially NEU!) with the Beach Boys and Velvet Underground, and made this pop masterpiece.
I think in many ways this CD is their honing, fine tuning, and perfecting that early sound, and it drops a few hints about the new musical direction they would take.

alright, two people obviously don't know what theyre talking about here. i like how intimidated mr. whitetrash- "oh, im sure those people at the art school could have fun explaining that"-idiot american obviously is with music he cant comprehend. um, no this isnt the same intervals but different notes repeated. what the heck are you talking about? the songs change key and all have different melodies. oh yeah, this album definitely borrows heavily from VU.. thats what i love about it. dots and loops is stereolab at their absolute melodic best and mixes things up the best, but this album is closest to why theyre so great live. it has a lot of energy and hard distortion, but is still incredibly melodic and not nearly as repetitive as some of their earlier work. i think it is more consistent than emperor tomato ketchup, although the two are very similar. a great album all the way through, with an occasional repetitive song here and there.