Hello Efren and everyone else. I think it's their strongest album in a while (in my case, since 'dots and loops'). Certainly better than 'sound dust'. However, it still retains a cut and paste feel - for example, the last track basically ends in the middle, and then a jam fades in to end the track (apparently the jam also appears on the EP the released prior to the album(?)). One difference is that they seem to do a better job of it this time around. Also, even though the songs have a variety of different parts in relatively short time, there are more memorable grooves present. Clearly they are never going to return to the relatively 'minimalistic' guitar-driven drones of their earlier albums - this album is chock full of blips and bleeps and what have you - but the album seems to have more space than 'sound dust' despite the auxilliary clutter. They make significant use of complete stereo seperation - like the Beatles, with the drums in one channel completely, and the vocals in the other. (The liner notes say the album was recorded in "dual-mono".) Mary Hansen is missed, but the other vocalist whose name I forget multitracks accompaniment. The loss will be striking during live performances - i'm not sure how they are going to pull it off. In general, i've been giving this disc a lot of time in my cd player. Hope this helps, whit np - diamonds are forever (soundtrack) On Thu, 12 Feb 2004, Efrén del Valle wrote:
Hi there,
Yesterday I saw in someone's n.p the latest Stereolab album. Any opinions on it will be appreciated. How does the group sound with Mary Hansen's absence?
Best,
Efrén del Valle n.p: 50th Birthday Celebration Vol. I: Masada String Trio
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