On September 13th, 2019, Stereolab continue their year-long seven album reissue campaign with the release of 1996’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup, 1997’s Dots and Loops and 1999’s Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night as expanded and remastered editions on vinyl, compact disk and digital via Warp Records and the band’s own Duophonic UHF Disks.
Today, less than a month away from their release, the band shared an unreleased, instrumental version of Dots and Loops mainstay ‘The Flower Called Nowhere’ – one of their most sampled songs, coming from an era in the band’s canon that’s particularly well-loved in the hip-hop world. Listen to the instrumental version of ‘The Flower Called Nowhere’ here: https://stereolab.ffm.to/flower
“This song was recorded with Jan Werner and Andi Toma of Mouse on Mars,” explains Tim Gane, “and remains one of my absolute favourite Stereolab tracks. I was very interested to find a chord that would evoke the feeling I got when listening to the music of Polish jazz musician and film composer Krzysztof Komeda. I eventually found a chord that I liked, probably by accident, and with it I wrote the music for this song. We also tried to capture some of that mid/late 60’s European exploitation film music vibe with the rolling harpsichords, trap drums, ethereal vocals and other colourful sounds.
“As an extra feature one of us (probably Andi when I talked about the sound I wanted with him) thought to put the Gothic choral chant as featured in Fearless Vampire Killers in the track, so off we went to the local video store to see if they had it in stock. Amazingly enough they did, and we were able to duplicate it more or less. It’s weird to think that if the local video store hadn’t have that film in stock at exactly that point in time then this track would have been totally different.”
As with May’s reissues of Transient Random Noise-Bursts With Announcements and Mars Audiac Quintet, each album in September’s second batch has been remastered from the original 1/2″ tapes by Bo Kondren at Calyx Mastering and overseen by Tim Gane. Bonus material will include alternate takes, 4 track demos and unreleased mixes.
The initial vinyl editions will be pressed onto triple clear vinyl with a poster / insert containing sleeve notes by Tim. They will also include a lottery style scratch card – all winners will receive an exclusive Stereolab record at the end of 2019.
The band continue to produce super limited editions of 500 clear vinyl copies and 250 compact disks – each will have a numbered obi band made from 2″ 24 track Stereolab master tape. These will only be available via mail order from the website.
Expect Stereolab’s 2019 reissues campaign to be completed with the release of Sound-Dust and Margerine Eclipse in November 2019.
Following a UK run this summer, Stereolab will continue to play live shows across 2019.
