[.ca] Mars Audiac Quintet

From Amazon.com:
Think of a sober B-52s taking their inspiration from Brian Eno and the German synth pioneers of the '70s, and you'll have a sense of this English sextet's sound. --Jeff Bateman

tied with dots and loops for best 'lab album:
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.

papa, please pass some fishsticks:
The repetitiveness does get a little old after a while (like on certain sections of Transiet) but the music made by Stereolab is beautiful in its fusion of lush keyboards, distorted guitars, clean vocals, and out of control noises; it all clashes into a psychadelic array of psycho-space-samba music or something like that; a good album to drop to. Also, despite the fact that alot of the songs have similar tempos and rhythms, the unorthodox and usually lovely tones covered here (espescially on numbers like "International Colouring Contest") keeps the songs varied and entertaining. Each Stereolab album is a little different, but they all seem to posess that trippy, futuristic space exploration sound. If you want something a bit more all over the place and consistent, get Sound-Dust....it's almost like the Mr. Bungle of Stereolab's catalog, shifting between different tempos and genres (jazz, techno, piano folk, ambience, and their usual sound whatever you wanna call it)a couple times per song. Anyway, notch this down as a good album to trip to. "I'm so full of ideas, and here's a good one..."

awesome:
One summer, my entire driving soundtrack consisted of Peng!, Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements and Mars Audiac Quintet. The propulsive opiate repetitions of Stereolab's radical elevator music went well with shifts in cloud formations and managed to slow-down the frantic New Jersey traffic patterns. In some ways, Mars Audiac Quintet is the least ambitious record of Stereolab's early-90s period, but it still sounds savvy: Check the subversive "Ping Pong", which contrasts sunny-day musicality with anti-war economic theory. Better yet are the hopeful sentiments expressed within the dreamy "Wow and Flutter": "I thought IBM was born with the world/ The U.S. flag would float forever/ The cold opponent did pack away/ The capital will have to follow/ It's not eternal, imperishable/ Oh yes, it will go." Death as a liberating force: If we die, it seems IBM will die, too.

Stereolab mature, first major release.:
I first heard this album when it was released in around 1995 and was instantly taken by it. No other band at that time sounded like Sterolab, and the sounds combined within the grooves represented a lot of what I love about music - lovely melodies, Can-like rhythm repetition, Farfisa compact-duo drones, child like girl voices singing ba-ba and la-las, and Philip Glass references (how come no one picks that one up?) The music was not afraid to continue on and repeat in its own way. Meditative would be an apt description, but it does have its more accessible pop moments like Ping Pong and Wow and Flutter. I never bought this LP till 1999 - I had the Ping Pong CD and the Wow and Flutter 10" with extra tracks but never got M.A.Q. I don't know why I did this but anyway when I finally got the album I was not dissapointed. I would have to say it is a classic and also important in the sense that I think it was their first released via major label Elektra. I really love how this band have (or had?) two labels - Duophonic for the fan/obscure stuff and Elektra for the mainstream, how clever! This is well worth the investment of your hard earned dollar, although I would say that LPs like Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Dots and Loops and Margerine Eclipse are more acessible to the general public, but to the music fan, you can't go wrong with this.

Beats on drones:
This is my favorite 'lab CD. The music consists more of beats over drones in a warm-ish electronica mode. Compared to 'Dots and Loops', which many reviewers name as Stereolab's best CD, 'Mars' is less jazz-laced and more methodical and constant in its rythm. I find the result calming yet focused, where 'Dots' leaves me energized but a little too scattered.

• Three-Dee Melodie
• Wow and Flutter
• Transona Five
• Des Étoiles Electroniques
• Ping Pong
• Anamorphose
• Three Longers Later
• Nihilist Assault Group
• International Colouring Contest
• Stars Our Destination
• Transporte Sans Bouger
• Enfer des Formes
• Outer Accelerator
• New Orthophony
• Fiery Yellow