Blogarhythms

Anyone who read Friday’s post (and there are more than a few of you… thank you all for the comments) can imagine that my weekend wasn’t going to be a “happy” one. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mark the occasion of my mothers’ passing with hand-wringing, weeping and gnashing of teeth (she wouldn’t have wanted that), but it wasn’t an occasion for celebration either if you know what I mean. So it should go without saying that as I enter a new week (and another year since losing her) I could use a “pick me up.”

The universe, it appears, is aware of exactly what I need, because it dropped what just might be the happiest, sunniest, most “feel good” track of the year right in my lap at precisely the right moment. That track is “Neon Beanbag,” the opening number on Chemical Chords, British/French space-age Pop outfit Stereolab’s new album. With a musical base wrought from layers of joyous organs and toy xylophones that sound pulled from some ’60s ode to fun at an amusement park laid atop a frolicsome drum-machine beat, listening to the song is like pouring a puréed “smiley face” right in your ear. Then vocalist Lætitia Sadier starts singing; first wordless “doo-wah-doo’s,” then assurances that “there’s nothing to be sad about” because “we need nothing to feel bad about.” There’s more about a telepathic woman who happens to be the source of the song’s message, but you get the gist.

Stereolab “Neon Beanbag”

The remainder of Chemical Chords isn’t always as insistently cheerful as “Neon Beanbag” happens to be. Although it remains unabashedly inspired by the music of the sunny, psychedelic ’60s throughout its 14 tracks and near 50-minutes of play time. As such, it’s difficult to not find oneself getting into an appropriately “groovy” mood when listening to it.

With a repetitive piano & organ intro and sumptuous horn & string arrangements the title track conjures the feel of The Guess Who’s classic “These Eyes” or countless Burt Bacharach compositions. The soulful Orchestral Pop of Bacharach and his Brill Building cronies, and the sophisticated swinging soul of Detroit’s Motown hit-factory, bears influence on the beautifully existentialist “Self Portrait (With Electric Brain)” too. “Pop Molecule,” “Nous Vous Demandons Pardon” and “Valley Hi!” (which has one of the most charming vocal melodies on the album) rely more heavily on synthesizers, drum machines and tuffer, almost punky, riffing and so come off like an amalgam of ’60s proto-Electronica, Pop, Garage-Rock and acidic Psyche-Rock played by an ’80s New Wave band. “Cullulose Sunshine” gets all British-Invasion-era Psyche-Pop with its harpsichords, vibes, strings and snappy elastic basslines. The robotic stomp and snap of a drum machine marching beneath a tremulous bassline, haunted house synths and plaintive guitars lend “One Finger Symphony” the feel of a Bobby Digital-era RZA beat, or something off the most recent Portishead album. “Fractal Dream of a Thing” and “Vortical Phonotheque” both remind me of Stevie Wonder; the former of an avant-garde, Free-Jazz-influenced Lounge-Pop band copping his style, and the latter as a quotation of “I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever).” And “Silver Sands” has “made for a Michel Gondry trailer” written all over it.

Stereolab “Self Portrait With Electric Brain (YACHT Remix)”
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No, Chemical Chords isn’t necessarily all smiles. And admittedly it’s impossible to know what Ms. Sadier is cooing about, be it happy or sad, for us non-French-speakers when she dips into her native language. But whatever the lyrics are about, the album’s sonic textures are almost always warm and fuzzy, like your brain after a day spent baking in the hazy Summer sunshine, or maybe the brain of someone “baked” for other reasons entirely, if you get my meaning?

I wouldn’t know anything about that, since the only mood altering substance I indulge in happens to be music. But if the ingestion of “special” chemicals is supposed to take away ones pain and give them a sense of well-being then Stereolab’s are as psychoactive as ever.