Stereolab to Play Detroit Bar Sept. 20

Your favorite krautrock/bossa-nova/French ya-ya/exotica/retro-futurist pop groop return to Costa Mesa's Detroit Bar just as summer's expiring. Tickets went on sale May 12 at the usual places and sites. Hesitation is not advised if you want to see this show.

Stereolab's first new album since 2004's Margerine Eclipse, Chemical Chords, comes out Aug. 19 on Duophonic/4AD. The songs I've heard from it sound like... Stereolab; no radical departures at all, but then they never radically depart from their signature approach. And that's cool. The track listing [see below] also maintains their typically oblique poetry.

'Neon Beanbag'
'Three Women'
'One Finger Symphony'
'Chemical Chords'
'The Ecstatic Static'
'Valley Hi!'
'Silver Sands'
'Pop Molecule' (Molecular Pop 1)
'Self Portrait With "Electric Brain"'
'Nous Vous Demandons Pardon'
'Cellulose Sunshine'
'Fractal Dream Of A Thing'
'Daisy Click Clack'
'Vortical Phonotheque'

Pitchfork recently interviewed primary 'lab songwriter Tim Gane. Here's a snippet:

I make music that I like the sound of, but then I tend to like kind of melodic music with slightly strange elements. The thing I really wanted to do on this record-- and that we did do, I think-- was make short songs that were more upbeat. Deliberately pick rhythms that were quite fast.

Now check out this great "Brakhage" song/video.